Vengeance
by gf7
Summary: Sometimes, dead is better. Especially when Lucas Taylor controls you. Wash/Taylor. Fix-it fic for the finale.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: My turn at the fix-it fic for the S1 finale. Gonna be a bit here so strap in. This chapter contains some death, language and general violence and angst. Please humor any scientific goofery, comical Bad Son characterization and OMG plot hole existance. All about Wash, yeah? In any case, please enjoy.

* * *

><p>The first thing he asks Tom Boylan once they have a semi-quiet almost solitary moment is, "Where is she?" He knows that he doesn't need to clarify; everyone knows whom he is speaking of.<p>

"They took her," the bartender says with clear disgust in his tone. While he'd had a fall-out with Taylor many years earlier, he'd retained some degree of respect and liking for the lieutenant. Above and beyond that, whether out of the service or not, Boylan continues to believe in the basic tenants of humanity.

Bad enough that Taylor's bastard son had executed the lieutenant in front of the Command Tower that had stood as the nerve center of Terra Nova during her best days, but far worse that they hadn't even allowed Wash's body to be claimed by those who would show it the respect due it.

No, instead, Boylan had been forced to watch in seething rage as two of the Phoenix goons had lifted her up and carried her body away.

"Took her where?" Taylor asks, his brow creasing. He's in pain from the knife shoved into him by his son, but somehow that doesn't even begin to compare to the emotional turmoil that is sweeping through him.

Too much loss. Even for him.

Wash.

Lucas.

And oh yes, Lucas is truly one hundred percent gone. Alive or dead, even in full denial mode, there's simply no coming back from all of the willing evil – such a simplistic word, Taylor muses bitterly – that he's committed. It's a heartbreaking realization for Nathaniel, but one that hits him with a kind of raw searing finality.

That boy out there? He's all enemy now. No use pretending otherwise. No point in hoping that the next time they meet, there won't be blood spilled.

"Probably outside the gates, Commander," Boylan answers. "I heard those Phoenix goons dumped quite a few of the bodies of our people out there. Probably…" he pauses for a minute, knowing how his words are going to be taken. "They probably meant for the scavenger dinos to get them."

Taylor feels her heart nearly explode with pain. It's too much. Too damned much.

He doesn't say another word, just turns and walks away from Boylan, as if towards the gates. As if he's going to go out there and look for her himself.

He doesn't make three feet before he collapses and the world turns dark.

* * *

><p>Lucas Taylor may not have the morality of his father, but he certainly has his old man's single minded persistence, Mira thinks to herself as she watches the young man fidget in front of the medic (it's something of a stretch to call him that, she realizes, since the stitches the guy is putting in Lucas's chest are sloppy and loose, likely to split open with the simplest of movements).<p>

And dammit if killing him is a bit like trying to off one of those villains from those old twentieth century horror flicks that her big brother had been so terribly fond of back when they'd been kids. God, so very long ago.

He's hurt for sure. Two bullets to the chest (and not the sonic kind either – no, these had been real old school projectiles) and a clear ass-kicking courtesy of Nathaniel Taylor have left Lucas looking like he should be chilling in a hospital for a few weeks. Course, way out in the middle of the fucking wilderness (again), that's probably not going to happen.

Still, this is different than when she'd been out with Carter and the others, hanging out in the trees (yeah, because that's what they'd been doing, having a good old campout, she thinks to herself). These Phoenix guys may be complete Soldier of Fortune assholes, but they're a hell of a lot more put together than they have any right to be. There's a sense around all of this that maybe they'd expected to have to hightail it out of Terra Nova. Maybe, this had always been the fallback plan. She's not sure if she's impressed or infuriated by that.

As it is, the entire Phoenix force and the Sixers – now led by Hooper and Lucas – are out in the middle of the Badlands, camping out in massive tents. They have more gear than they have the right to – some of it extremely high-tech. They even have portable bio-beds that can be assembled and disassembled within minutes. It's a bit ridiculous really – and more than a little unsettling.

"You're thinking," Lucas says to her, sounding slightly drugged. She imagines the soldier who had been playing medic (how silly to not have actually had anyone on the team able to actually fill that role completely) has given him a rather healthy dose of some kind of painkillers. Considering all of his wounds, he certainly deserves it. She watches as he waves the soldier out of the tent, leaving just the two of them alone. Never a woman to be scared around any man, she's nonetheless not at all comfortable with being alone around this one.

"This wasn't the plan," she answers finally. She shakes her head. There's so much more she wants to say, but really, what's the point? Mira has always been a pragmatic woman – this entire arrangement has never been about greed or rage for her; it's always been about a singular goal. Her daughter. Now, robbed of that, she feels more than a little bit adrift. Utterly purposeless.

"No," he agrees. "My father was supposed to be dead. That little summer camp was supposed to be burned to the ground – well eventually anyway – and you and I were supposed to be sitting pretty back in 2149." He sighs. "Plans change."

"You're pretty calm for a man who just lost to his father. Again." It's probably not wise to taunt him – she's seen how cruel he can be – but her anger and hurt are starting to come to the surface, and she can't quite resist.

"I'm on something very good," he laughs. "That and we haven't lost. Just…delayed things a bit."

"Really? So you have another way to get back to 2149?" she keeps her tone carefully controlled, doesn't want him to hear hope in it.

He shakes his head and laughs (sounding more than a little bit insane to her ears), "No. 2149 is gone. Without Hope Plaza, our chances of returning to that timeline are pretty well fucked."

"So you're still talking vengeance."

"Yes."

"Enjoy yourself," she grunts, standing up. "I'm out."

"Shame," he says, pushing himself up. "I'd think you'd be on that train one hundred percent."

"Really? And why would that be?"

"They're the ones who destroyed our way home. Not me. I had every intention of following through with our agreement," Lucas answers as he steps towards her, wincing with every step he takes. The part of her that isn't furious and hopeless takes a moment to consider his wounds. She almost tells him to sit back down, not tear the wounds open. In the end, she doesn't though because she's not sure if she cares if he bleeds out. Maybe that'd be better for everyone anyway.

"You're the one who let your vendetta against your father blind you."

They stare at each other for a long moment, and oddly enough, it's Lucas who finally backs down, stepping back and sliding himself back onto the field bio-bed.

"Maybe so," he agrees finally. "But I've come too far to stop now."

"That's your problem, not mine." She steps towards him. "And what you've done, I never would have done."

"I assume you mean what I did to his lieutenant."

"She didn't need to die."

"People die in war, Mira."

"You executed her."

"Do I…do I actually hear some affection for my father's lapdog?"

Mira chooses not to answer that directly, instead says, "It wasn't necessary. You motivated him."

"No, I showed him what I was capable of."

Mira shakes her head. "I want no part of that."

"You're already part of it. You really think my father will differentiate between who pulled the trigger and who didn't? What about the fact that you were on my side when we took down the colony. You might think yourself noble because you never killed anyone when you were out in the jungle with your pathetic Lost Boys, but you have blood on your hands same as I do."

She grits her teeth at that, doesn't deny it.

This had never been her plan. She'd never wanted to really hurt anyone. Not seriously anyway. A few bruises, a few couple of cuts, maybe some broken bones, but death? No. And still, despite her intentions, it'd happened.

"You're insane," she tells him.

"Yes," he replies, sounding even loopier now (and yet somehow more frighteningly clear and focused than he has since this conversation had begun).

"Let's say I'm considering your 'offer', what's your plan?"

He grins at that. "Give me a hand up, and I'll show you."

Reluctantly, she crosses the tent, slides an arm around him, and helps him up. It occurs to him just how easy it would be for him to kill him. He's so weak right now, so close to the edge. And yet, for reasons Mira can't quite begin to understand, she lets the chance pass.

It's absolutely the wrong decision.

* * *

><p>When Nathaniel comes to a few hours later, he's in the Infirmary (pretty much the only building which had been left mostly intact). Before he can even think to sit up, Elizabeth is at his side, fussing over him and checking his vitals.<p>

"Commander," she says softly, touching his arm.

"What happened?" he asks, glancing around.

She considers her words carefully, then answers with a slightly dishonest, "You'd lost a lot of blood, sir."

"I passed out?" he clarifies.

She nods. She could tell him that she's pretty sure that it hadn't been blood which had made him fall, but she knows that that's the last thing he wants to hear. He has his pride, and needs to think that he is always the master of his own emotions. Even when he's not.

"Am I all right now?"

"You are."

"Good." He starts to stand, allowing her to hold his elbow as he does. Once he's solidly on the ground, he asks, "Has anyone been sent out to find the bodies?"

"Corporal Reilly led a team out herself."

"Anything found yet?"

"A mass grave was."

Quite involuntarily, he flinches at that. He's seen entirely too many of those in his lifetime – crude massive holes dug to offer up the very worst kind of post-mortem shame and humiliation to the fallen. The idea of his proud and brave lieutenant being discarded in one of those curdles his stomach.

"Has she –"

"Not yet. But we have recovered several bodies. Some we've identified," she hands him a plexpad with names on it. "Others we haven't yet,"

"You're sure she's not one of them?"

"We are. The lieutenant had several marks on her that would make identification somewhat simple - even considering the elements. So far, none of the bodies that we've recovered from the mass grave match."

He nods at that. "All right. Am I clear to return to duty?"

"Light duty only, Commander. You're not to join Reilly's team. If I find out you have, I'll pull your clearance so fast your head will spin. Do I make myself clear?"

He looks at her with a mixture of amusement, annoyance and admiration in his eyes. "Clear as a bell, Doc."

"Good. This colony needs you, Commander. We may have retaken Terra Nova, but everyone is feeling the losses we've suffered. Everyone feels her loss. Which means everyone is looking to you to help us heal."

"I know. Thanks, Doc."

He's two steps away from the door when she calls him back. "Commander, just so you know, I'm dead serious. If I find you've been out there…"

"I get it. I'll behave."

She snorts in clear disbelief.

In that moment, she sounds a hell of a lot like Wash.

It's just about enough to break his heart.

"We'll see," she tells him, then shaking her head, turns and heads out to help work on another patient. He watches her for a moment, thinking about what his lieutenant had done to protect this family – and Terra Nova as a whole.

It'd been one hell of a heroic sacrifice.

And she'd been so brave.

Doesn't change the fact that it should have never happened.

Or the fact that she still hasn't been brought home yet.

_Soon, Wash_, he thinks with an impossibly heavy heart. _I'll bring you home soon._

* * *

><p>"Where are we going?" Mira asks as she helps Lucas down a muddy hill towards a tent far off to the side of the main camp. It's heavily guarded, being watched by the highest ranking of the Phoenix soldiers.<p>

"To see my wildcard."

Mira doesn't reply to that. It's clear she's just going to have to wait and see what Lucas is up to. Asking him any further questions will just lead to more annoying half-answers full of obnoxious riddles.

They get to the tent, and Lucas waves at the guard. "Anyone in there?"

"Doctor Bradley, sir," the guard replies, mentioning one of the scientists that had been brought along.

"We're going in."

"Yes, sir," the man says, stepping aside.

They step inside, and the first thing Mira sees is that it appears as though they've entered some kind of decontamination area. There are beeping machines everywhere, and in the center of it all is a single bio-bed.

The scientist turns when he sees Lucas. "Sir?"

"How's our patient?"

"Same as before."

"Right. Leave us."

The scientist beats a hasty – and clearly thankful – retreat. Once gone, Mira turns to look at all of the equipment again.

"Where did you get all of this gear?" Mira asks.

"Some of it we brought across, some of it we stole from the Terra Nova infirmary. Most of it is incredibly light and easy to transport. If we're going to be out here for a bit, we need to have ways to take care of ourselves."

"We managed with nature," Mira says, her eyes on the bio-bed. There's someone lying in it – someone with long dark hair. Clearly a woman. Obviously "the patient" that Lucas had been talking to the scientist about.

"We don't have to."

"Yet anyway. Who is that?"

"Go see for yourself," Lucas smirks, seeming entirely too proud of himself.

Slowly, a bit reluctantly, Mira steps closer, then pulls up sharply, eyes wide. "I thought…I heard…" She finds her staring down at the badly wounded – but somehow inexplicably still alive - body of Lieutenant Alicia Washington.

Her face is horribly bruised up – visual proof of the sonic blast that had hit her squarely. There's swelling around her forehead, jaw and nose. Both eyes are heavily ringed with dark colors. Still, she's…alive.

"You heard I killed her?" Lucas says, coming to stand next to Mira. "I tried. Turns out my father's favorite soldier is a real bitch to kill. Just like him."

"Just like you," Mira answers, glancing down at his chest.

He shrugs at that. "When they went to pick up her body, one of the men found a pulse. Should have probably just finished the job right then and there, but this seemed like a better idea."

"Keeping her on life support?"

"Oh she'll wake up. Question is, just how badly fucked up she's going to be when she does. She took a sonic blast right to the head. It should have killed her, but didn't. Doesn't matter though; no one – not even the tough Lieutenant Washington - comes out of that unscathed. If we're lucky, she'll be a vegetable, and we can return her to my father like that. It'll kill him seeing her that way."

"And if she's not?" Mira asks with a frown. Her eyes slide over to the machines, especially the one controlling the life support. It'd be so easy to pull it, to end things and let the lieutenant move on.

"You have to admit, there's some poetry in trying to turn her against my father."

"It'll never work. She'll never turn on him."

"In her right mind, you're right. She's been following him around like a good loyal little soldier for fifteen years." He reaches out and touches one of the bandages on Washington's face. "But I don't think that's going to be who wakes up."

"This is sick," Mira says, eyes once again on the machines. "I won't be part of it."

"Do I really have to remind you again that you already are?"

This is the truth, and they both know it. And still, she rails against it.

Because dammit, this wasn't how things were supposed to go.

She closes her eyes. Steels herself. "No, you don't."

"Good."

"No, not good. Why in the hell would I do this?" she asks, meeting his eyes. "What do I stand to gain?"

"Revenge."

"I don't care about revenge."

"Yes, you do."

"No, not like this. Let her die with some degree of dignity."

"I don't owe her that."

"She did nothing to you."

"She stood beside him."

Mira shakes her head in disbelief.

She thinks about a deal made so many years ago. She thinks about her daughter. She thinks about who she was and what she had become.

She's not proud of herself, but God, no she's not this.

She's not.

She shakes her head.

"No. I won't do this."

"I understand. And I'm sorry," he says.

"No, you're not."

"I am. We could have been great allies."

She laughs bitterly. "You know your father once said that to me. Kind of wish I had chosen my side better."

"I bet you do."

The last thing she sees before her soul leaves her body a few moments later is him lift a sharp surgical scalpel up off the table. She's fairly certain – in the seconds of life she has left – that she could have fought him off had she tried.

She doesn't, though, because she just no longer cares.

She simply knows that no matter what evil she has committed in the name of being with her daughter again, this is one sin too many.

With her last act, she reaches desperately for the cable that will disconnect the lieutenant's life support. She tries frantically to right a wrong before she goes. She feels her fingers slide against it, even manages a slight tug. It's not enough.

It's never enough.

She thinks to herself one final heartbreaking time that this wasn't supposed to happen like this, and then everything disappears into an explosion of a thousand colors, then a bright beautiful light.

Then nothing.

Mercifully, she's already long gone when Dr. Bradley and the soldier enter to find out what had happened. She doesn't see Bradley turns to his attention to the bed Wash is on and says in a whispered tone of disbelief, "Sir, she's awake."

**TBC…**


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: And so it continues on for our dear Wash. Thanks for all the kind words, they are appreciated. Forgive the hokey 22nd century war science. Enjoy.

* * *

><p>Consciousness is a strange and somewhat mysterious thing for her – and not especially in a good way. It comes and goes like never-ending waves moving through the ocean. Up and down. In and out. Ad nauseam ad infinitum.<p>

When she surfaces, she does so inhaling greedy gulps of oxygen, and then almost immediately, she slides back underneath. In the few precious seconds she has available to her, she tries to lift her head up (not exactly knowing why just that she must), but even the effort of trying to do something so seemingly simple is enough to force her back beneath.

She hears a voice speaking to her from somewhere above her – it's distorted and grotesque, almost frightening (a strange thing indeed because even though she has no true sense of self right now, she seems to know and understand that she is not one to scare easily). She forces open her eyes in order to try to see who is speaking to her, and that too, is enough to throw her back in darkness.

She feels what she thinks is a hand touching her, but she doesn't know which part of her. Her cheek maybe? Her forehead? The contact is cool, and should be comforting, but it's far from it really. She vaguely feels like her skin is crawling.

And then again, there's darkness.

* * *

><p>He exits the tent, his expression furious. Her consciousness had been fleeting, lasting last than five minutes and even that time had been fractured and broken, punctuated by several failed attempts on her part to either open her eyes or sit up. She hadn't managed a single word.<p>

Annoying, but something he knows how to correct.

"Sir?" he hears from his side. He turns and sees the scientist that he'd assigned to watch over Lieutenant Washington standing with the Phoenix soldier known as Hooper. In the absence (likely death) of Weaver, Hooper is now in charge of the team – at least from a military POV. Frankly, Lucas could give a damn. He has no real use for these people now, would be just as glad if they'd find their way to the bottom of a ravine somewhere. Or into the jaws of a dinosaur. The only reason that he'd returned to them at all had been to get medical care.

And to get to her.

It had been upon his orders that Lieutenant Washington had been removed from Terra Nova. His initial plan had been to relocate her to an outpost, figure out what to do with her from there. At the time he'd made the decision, he'd assumed that he'd be engaged in guerrilla type warfare with his father for months.

He hadn't figured on losing Terra Nova just hours after shooting the lieutenant in the head. Still, his foresight had been fortuitous as far as he's concerned. Now he intends to gain from it. Assuming these damn soldiers don't get in the way.

Turns out Soldiers of Fortune can be just as damned annoying as ones who claim to have morals and codes of honor like his father and Washington.

"What?" Lucas demands stepping towards the men.

"Why'd you kill the woman?" Hooper demands, his eyes sliding over to where Mira's body lies, now under a dark tarp. He knows that when her people finally show up (they've been off scouting the edges of the Badlands – anxious to do just about anything besides sit around and wait) that there will be hell to pay.

"She was disloyal."

"What the hell are you talking about? She did everything she was told to do. Even after finding out her way home got scotched by your old man."

"I showed her the lieutenant and she wasn't on-board," Lucas answers, annoyance in his tone.

"I'm not on-board, Lucas. None of us are. We're no longer your men. You're not paying us, and your vendetta isn't ours."

"If you have something to say, say it."

"Fine. Kill the woman."

"No."

"Why not? You already tried to."

"That was all theatre. For my fathers' sake." It's a lie, of course, but Hooper doesn't need to know that.

Hooper grunts in disgust.

"Lucas," the scientist interjects. "She needs medical assistance. Assistance that no one in this camp including myself knows how to give her. She has massive swelling and bleeding in the brain. Left untreated, she's going to die."

"Well then I guess we'll have to treat her with what we have here."

"You're not hearing me, sir. We don't have anything here. I can read a scanner and I know a bit more than basic first aide, but this isn't my field. I'm not a medic."

"And we're not holding prisoners. Especially not ones that have to be carried around and fed by tube." Hooper tells him. "So you make your choice; kill the bitch or we're leaving you behind with her when we break camp in the morning."

For a moment, Lucas considers letting the rage surging through him out. It'd be so easy to bring Hooper and the scientist down. But then what? There are soldiers everywhere, all of them armed. Even he knows he can't take everyone.

And he has no intention of dying.

Not before he finishes dealing with his father.

Yes, it's a vendetta and even he knows that it's gone much too far. But stopping now would make it all pointless. He has so much blood on his hands, has done so many things that cross so many lines.

One way or another, he needs to see this through.

He's going to avenge his mother if it's the last thing he does.

"Fine," Lucas nods. "Leave us behind and do what you need to do."

Hooper blinks at that, hadn't expected it. He recovers quickly enough, though, seemingly actually (not surprisingly) a bit pleased. "We can only leave you limited supplies."

"All I need is the med tent she's in. You have no real use of it. Like you said, you don't have the ability to care for anyone suffering a long-term injury."

"Fine. You know this is madness, right?"

Lucas smiles at him almost sadly. "I do."

* * *

><p>"We'll keep looking," Jim Shannon insists as he follows the Commander into his office. It's still quite the mess, but it slowly but surely is being put back together. Everything in Terra Nova is.<p>

Almost everything.

There are still bodies missing. Twenty-two had been recovered from the mass grave, but that leaves almost a dozen souls unaccounted for.

Including Wash.

Taylor simply nods in response. He doesn't give voice to what he's thinking; they'll never find her body because the wildlife of the jungle already has.

"Commander, we will find her," Jim assures him, determination in his tone.

Taylor sighs. "Shannon, you know how many soldiers I've lost? Good men and women who died long before they should have?"

"Probably too many."

"Damn right too many. And you know how many of those too many I haven't been able to bring home?"

"I don't, sir."

"Also too many. But I've always tried because I have always believed that the family has the right to bury their dead. They have the right to have closure."

"We'll get that. Whatever it takes, sir," Jim answers. There's a kind of desperation in the younger man's blue-green eyes, like he needs to find the friend who'd laid down her life his family just as much as the Commander does. Truth is, he does.

"All right then, Shannon. Keep looking," Taylor finally says after a long moment of thought. "At least find her tags."

"I will."

There's a knock on the door-frame, which makes them both look up. They see Elizabeth Shannon standing in the doorway, a plexpad in her hands.

"Commander, I've finished the inventory," she states as she enters.

"And?"

"They took a large amount of painkillers, several field kits and some of the anti-toxins," Elizabeth states as she hands him the plexpad.

"Pretty standard," Taylor nods, placing the pad down on his desk. If he's completely honest with himself, he's not terribly interested in the minutia of the rebuilding – not yet at least. That time will come, but just…not yet.

"There's one more thing, and I have to admit, it puzzles me a bit. They took an entire box of Level One stimulants. I didn't even know we had them until we completed the inventory and they came up missing."

"Stims, huh?" Taylor muses, a hand sliding up to touch his beard. "I believe that batch came over with the 1st pilgrimage. After the rest of the team caught up with me, I mean. Level One stims are hardcore. They're what Wash and me were supposed to be using in the middle of the war. They kept you on your feet and semi-lucid even if your head had been half bashed in."

"Aren't those the ones that ended up causing some of the soldiers after the war to have complete psychotic breaks?" Elizabeth queries, frowning.

Jim nods his head. "I hunted down a few of them. Drugged out of their minds, unable to sleep, paranoid, the works."

"You probably ran into a few of the kids that got exposed to the stim cocktails. Late in the war, some of the brass realized that if you mixed of a few of the so-called flavors together, you could build yourself quite obedient soldier. Did what they were told to without question. Pretty awful to see in person."

"Sounds like," Elizabeth says, disgust clear in her tone.

"I wouldn't let the kids in my unit use them," Taylor states. "Always figured what's the point in fighting to live if you don't realize you've won because you've lost your damned mind in the process. When I found out some had been sent with us here, I locked them away. Haven't thought about them in years, to be honest."

"Why would the Phoenix soldiers take them?" Elizabeth asks.

"They're in the middle of a jungle they know nothing about, probably figure it'll give them an edge until they figure things out," Jim offers.

"I'd guess he's right," Taylor nods. "In any case, no real loss for us. Anything else missing, Doc?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Then if you two don't mind, I have a lot of paperwork to get to."

They both know he's lying; there's just a few slips of paper on his desk, most of it covered in doodles and a few numbers. There's likely nothing overly pressing, but that's not really the point of his request anyway. No, they both know what he actually wants right now is the quiet of his own thoughts and memories.

"Yes, sir," Jim answers immediately, reaching out to take Elizabeth's hand.

"Find her, Shannon."

"I will." And with that, the couple exits together.

Once they're gone and he's once again alone, Taylor leans back in his chair, flinching ever so slightly as the wound on his side whistles at him. It's been well taken care of, stitched and sealed by expert hands, and yet he'd be lying if he didn't admit that it feels like it's been fixed up all wrong.

Not the way Wash would do it.

Which is absurd really because she almost never fixes him up once he's back in Colony. She leaves that to the actual doctors. It's usually only when they're OTG that she falls back into old ways. Or at least had.

Had.

He needs to start thinking about her in the past tense.

After all, it's not like she's going to just walk through the doors any minute now with some kind of status update.

No, she's gone and she's not coming back.

He runs his fingers through his hair. It's long and needs to be clipped, but he has no real care to find the barber. His beard needs trimming, and he'll get around to it eventually he's sure.

Eventually, the man he is and has always been will force him to stay in control. To be the calm and collected leader that Terra Nova needs.

But it's only been a few days.

And she still hasn't been found.

He hopes people understand that he needs just a few days.

And he needs her home.

* * *

><p>True to their word, the Phoenix guys move out just before dawn. They leave him with almost everything that is in the med-tent as well as a case of canned food. It won't last him long, but he doesn't need it to. He knows how to hunt. He knows how to live out here far better than they do.<p>

He'll survive even while they're dwindling down and dying off.

He knows that he, too, needs to get moving. He doesn't want to be an easy target when Carter and his people finally return to discover that their leader was murdered. While Lucas is afraid of almost no one, he hasn't time to deal with the stupidity that comes with the Sixers.

There's so many other things to think about.

He steps into the med tent, and crosses over to where Wash is lying – appearing to be once again in a light coma. He examines the tubes going into her – fluids and sustenance. There's only enough of these things for another few days.

Not that he'll need it.

It's time for the lieutenant to wake up and hold her own.

He steps away from her, makes his way over to a box against the wall. It's metal and secured with three locks, but they're simple and he's inside within moments.

The first thing he sees wrapped around several red, yellow, green and blue syringes is a thin black strip of tape which cries out in large white block letters: LEVEL ONE STIMULANTS. ONLY TO BE USED WITH PROPER MEDICAL SUPERVISION. PLEASE NOTE THAT EXTREME PERSONALITY ALTERING SIDE EFFECTS ARE TYPICAL AND TO BE EXPECTED.

He lifts up one of the yellows – supposedly the most mild of the family. These things are almost disgustingly simple to administer – made so that even the stupidest soldier (or even one suffering a normally debilitating head injury like Wash is) can get themselves moving in the middle of a warzone.

He steps over to Wash, lifts her left arm, finds a vein and slams the syringe into it. The liquid that drips into her veins is small – just a drop or two – but it hits her system almost immediately, forcibly pulling her out of the light coma she's in. It's no wonder, he muses, that the entire medical association had denounced these things as a monstrosity of science.

Her eyes rip open, wide and panicked. The heart monitors register the way her blood pressure is quickly rising. All of these would be terrifying signs normally, but when these stimulants are involved, they're just business as usual.

"Lieutenant," Lucas says with a small grin.

"Lucas," she gasps out, her voice cracking badly. She winces against the lights within the tent, her eyes unable to seal out the brightness. She's quite suddenly hyper aware and hyper sensitive.

Which intrigues the hell out of him.

"Right here," he says, then reaches out and touches her arm. He's not surprised – though fascinated – when she shivers violently in reaction. He thinks that every hair on her arms is standing up, every part of her humming with an energy that probably hurts in an almost unbearable way. He figures that she's likely never felt so unnaturally alive in all her life.

Unless she's taken this thing before, which at some point or another – even if not with his father – she probably has. The reading he's done on the war suggests that almost every soldier who'd participated had been exposed to at least one or two stims during their time. Some had quite willingly become addicted.

Probably not her, though.

No, not his father's favorite soldier. His dad would never have allowed that.

"What did you give me?" she demands, more emotion than is normal from her spitting out in her tone. She's struggling like crazy to control all the feelings and energy that is ripping through her.

"A Level One stim. And really? That's your first question? I would have guessed you'd ask if I'd died, too, and if we were both in hell together."

She considers this idea for a moment, but unable to find a reason for using stims in hell (even if they are some kind of hell themselves) she instead settles on the realization that somehow or another – rather inexplicably really – she's alive.

"Why?" she demands, her body trembling, her teeth chattering.

"Because I need you up and off your ass. We have a long trip ahead of us, and I have no intention of carrying you the whole way."

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Oh, yes, you are."

"What are you going to do if I refuse? Try to kill me again?"

"So you remember then?"

She blinks at that because no, she hadn't really remembered. Not exactly anyway. She'd just kind of…known.

"You'll remember everything eventually. Until the stims wear off anyway. You know what happens when they do, right?"

"I return to whatever state I was in beforehand."

"That's right. And look down, Lieutenant. See your state."

She does, and is somewhat mildly surprised to see herself lying in a bed, tubes running into her. She lifts her hand up to her face, and winces, almost passing out from the pain that races through her when her fingers touch against one of the nasty marks on her temple.

"I shot you in the face with a sonic pistol. Somehow or another, you survived, but you're in bad shape. If I just leave you, you'll probably live a few days, maybe weeks. You'll likely starve to death or suffer a few massive strokes. None of which will feel terribly good I'm sure."

"Then just kill me. Finish the job."

"No."

"I won't help you hurt him. You know that."

"I do. You're too loyal to willingly do it, but then I wasn't planning on giving you the choice, Lieutenant." He holds up a blue syringe. "You were a medic in the war weren't you, Alicia? You remember what happens when you mix stimulants? You remember why unit leaders used to do it?"

She swallows but doesn't reply.

"I know your brain is pretty fucked up right now so let me remind you; they combined the stims in order to make soldiers more pliable, more willing to do as ordered. That way when the Commanders told their men to run screaming into a group of enemy soldiers while they slid away back to their safe little foxholes, you idiot grunts did what you were told without argument. "

"Don't do this," she pleads. She's not begging him, but it's as close to it as she'll ever come. During her time at the clinic, she'd seen more than a handful of soldiers come in after being exposed to stim cocktails. She can still recall feeling for the men and their terribly fractured psyches. As such, she truly fears what's about to be done to her. The idea of losing her mind and being forced to do something that she'll never be able to forgive herself for horrifies her on a level she's not completely sure she understands.

"Shh, relax. It'll all be okay. You have my word that when this is all over, I'll either kill you myself or let someone back in the Colony take care of you. Not that there will probably be much to take care of."

"Lucas…"

"Loyalty is a truly fascinating thing isn't it?" he says as he removes the cover from the syringe. "It makes us put ourselves in the line of fire for people. It made you take a bullet to protect his dream. I have to admit, there's something almost poetic about getting to use you to destroy him. I thought killing you would do that, but this, this is so much better."

"Lucas…"

"You know why? Because he'll never raise a hand to stop you. You could come at him with a knife and he'd let you kill him because his 'guilt' over you is so damned strong. Real shame he didn't feel that for my mom."

She shakes her head desperately (and painfully). "No, Lucas, listen to me. He did. He loved her so much. He…"

He doesn't let her finish the sentence, instead grabs her jaw and squeezes it. Quite involuntarily, she cries out. "Never speak of her," he growls.

Her only response is a tear rolling down her face. She hates that it's there, but the stims have made every part of her scream with pain and the rough contact on her jaw is almost unbearable. In spite of the chemicals rushing through her, she can feel shadows dancing in front of her eyes, beckoning her towards him.

All of that passes a moment later when she feels a stabbing pain as the chemicals within the blue syringe are pushed into her bloodstream. There's an odd coolness, and then suddenly, it feels like she's drifting, sliding away.

The only problem is, she's very very conscious.

* * *

><p>By the time the first week passes, they all know that the chances of finding the missing bodies have become very slim indeed. It's only stubbornness that drives Jim Shannon on, making him leave Terra Nova every morning at just after sunrise and return just before darkness.<p>

He's desperate the find the woman who had laid down her life for him and family.

And yet day after day, he comes home empty handed.

It breaks his heart.

On the seventh day, Taylor makes the decision to hold a funeral for her sans the body. The men need it, he reasons. They need to be able to say their goodbyes.

Wash would have hated the gathering, despised the tears and the clear sorrow. She would have wanted something simple like a plain salute and then back to business. Maybe a rose or two just for the sake of beauty.

What she gets is almost every man, woman and child in Terra Nova coming together to pay their respects. Everyone knows that it was her distraction which had allowed for Jim Shannon to escape and put the plan to save the Colony into action. They've even made it clear that it was her idea.

It's lovely really. Beautiful music and a eulogy that almost destroys Taylor to deliver. He's a man who's been forced to say a thousand goodbyes and yet this one just about does him in. Halfway through, he stops for almost a minute, his throat literally too closed up to allow words through.

When he resumes, he apologizes and makes a joke. He makes no attempt to wipe the tears away from his eyes even though he knows he should.

Afterwards, Taylor excuses himself, tells Shannon that he's in charge for the day. Tells the sheriff that he just needs a few hours of air.

Some space.

Jim doesn't ask why, doesn't ask anything really.

Just nods and says, "yes, sir."

* * *

><p>He's never seen the stim cocktail in action before, and even he has to admit that it's a bit frightening to behold.<p>

The lieutenant, who should by all rights be lying pretty damned close to death (as she had been just a few hours earlier) in a bed, is instead on her feet, pacing back and forth. She's anxious and agitated, but her reflexes are almost ridiculously sharp and her instincts are on a bizarre kind of super overdrive.

Every time there's a noise nearby, she snaps around, her hand reaching down for a sidearm that he hasn't allowed her to carry. Watching her now, he's pretty sure he's not going to give her one at all. She might end up killing everything within a five square mile radius (including himself) like this, he figures.

"Lieutenant Washington," he says, stepping over to her. He notices that her skin still appears to be hyper sensitive, and there's a flush to her face. She's breathing quickly, her heart likely hammering away in her chest.

These symptoms will pass, the study literature claims. Eventually, she'll barely be breathing at all, her body settling into a state of calm that defies physiology.

She turns towards him eyes still wide, but somehow sharply focused on him. Her personality seems to have been buried beneath the drug. The studies done on it have all said the same thing – if this damn thing didn't cause so many psychotic breaks, it'd be one hell of a super solider builder.

"Sir," she answers, her voice ridiculously crisp.

"You ready to move out?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fantastic. All we're taking with us are the packs over there. Can you carry one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good," Lucas answers, handing her one of the packs(the one with the field kits and the rations – he wants to keep the stims on him, just in case the real Wash personality finds a way to reassert itself). "Then let's get going. It's going to take us a few days to get back to Terra Nova."

**TBC…**


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Again, thanks for all of the kind words. They mean the world to me. I'm just letting my muse tell this one and staying out of the way. Blame him for the scientific inaccuracies. Small military note - I can't for the life of me figure out TN's military structure. I believe it's officers are on a Navy system and it's NCO's are more Army/Marine. In any case, I'm sticking with Navy for Wash and Taylor. Again, please enjoy and let me know your thoughts.

* * *

><p>It's three days after her memorial service when they finally come across a rare spot of good luck (if one could call it that) and are thus able to locate her tags. It happens quite by accident during a routine recon trip through the jungle area a few clicks to the north of Terra Nova. The tags are badly damaged, burnt and bent nearly in half, and completely non-operational (which explains why multiple attempts to find her body using the tracker within them have come up empty).<p>

It's Jim Shannon who picks them up, knowing exactly what they are without even having to wait for verification. Her name is just barely visible on the charred metal. Oddly enough, it's her nickname – Wash – that he sees clearly.

"Hers?" Reilly asks quietly.

"Yeah."

"So they dumped her body and left it to the dinos then?" There's obvious anger and distaste in her tone – she's furious about the treatment of her lieutenants' corpse. It's wrong and just hammers home the lack of anything good or moral about the men who had taken over Terra Nova for a few horrific days.

"Probably," Jim replies, his fingers closing over the dog tags. Wash hadn't always worn them around her neck (always on duty, most of the time off as well), but they'd always been somewhere on her person. Like any good soldier, she'd felt somewhat naked without them. Now, they're all that remain of her.

"It doesn't seem right not to be bringing her body home to the Commander."

"No, it doesn't," Jim agrees. "But finding these will mean a lot to him."

Reilly nods, but it's clear that something is bothering her. Jim briefly considers leaving it alone – he's not her CO. That said, in the absence of Wash, he's kind of stepped into the role until a replacement can be found. Which means that her soldiers – her kids – are now his.

"What is it, Corporal?"

"Sir, I know I shouldn't be asking this, and it's none of my business but –"

Jim cuts her off, knows exactly what she's thinking about. It's the same thing everyone else in the colony has been. "He's holding up. He'll be all right."

"We all know what she meant to him."

"Honestly, Reilly, I doubt any of us really had a clue in the world just how much she meant to him. But – and I hate to say this - he's been through this before; he'll make it through. If for no other reason than because the Colony needs him."

"That's…pretty unfair."

"Yeah, it is." He glances around, looks up at the sky. It's growing dark quickly. "We should be getting back," he tells the corporal. "I'm in no mood to play chicken with a Slasher tonight."

She inclines her head to show her agreement, then moves silently around to the passenger side of the Rover. He gets into the drivers side, powers up, and heads back to Terra Nova, Wash's tags still clutched tightly in his hand.

* * *

><p>A week into their on-foot trek back to Terra Nova (he's taking the very long way around, through the jungle) and he's realized three things about this stimmed-up version of Lieutenant Alicia Washington.<p>

First, this woman who is already intense is downright fucking terrifying like this. In the seven days that he's been forcibly injecting her with the stims, she's barely slept more than a few hours (and then only during her coming down periods).

She's hyper alert and hyper aware. Every one of her senses is in overdrive, and her body is almost painfully rigid with anxiety. While her vitals have seemed to calm, it's clear that every moment for her is like standing on the edge waiting to jump off – or be pushed off. Funny thing is, he's pretty sure that her conscious mind is completely unaware of all of this. When she's high on the stims, there's no sign of the good lieutenant. It's all soldier, no woman.

The second thing he notices is just how bad the coming down period is for her. During that time, she almost completely loses her ability to control her body. She's, of course, still quite badly wounded, and she seems to feel that in abundance once the stimulants are stripped away from her. Her memory also seems to fade in and out, as if suggesting that only the drugs are permitting her brain to function at a higher level.

No, Lucas corrects – a more instinctual primal level.

Drugged up, she falls into protect and attack mode. Her body becomes a vicious weapon that can't be slowed by human emotion or doubts. It's fascinating.

The third thing he realizes as he wipes blood away from his lip is that even coming apart at the seams, she's still dangerous as hell when she's slipping backwards. He'd learned that lesson the hard way when he'd turned his back on her after noticing her fall to her knees in pain.

She'd then thrown herself into him, grabbing at his neck and face with her hands. He'd been completely surprised (he knows just how weak she is, has seen her shaking ferociously after each come down) and thus allowed her to get in a couple good hits before coming to his senses and slapping – well punching really – her back and away away from him.

Now, they're both bloody. Difference is, she's furious. He's intrigued.

"I will remember that, Lieutenant," he says with a small smile. "I won't turn my back on you again."

"Good idea," she growls out. She's blinking quickly, trying to stay conscious, fighting not to slip back beneath the dark waves that are crashing towards her.

"I'm sorry about hitting you."

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

"Lucas, you don't have to do this. He's your father. No matter what you think, no matter what you've done, he still loves you."

Lucas snorts, his emotions shifting towards much uglier ones. If the lieutenant knows she's in danger, she doesn't show it. She figures after all she's gone through over the last couple of weeks, what more could he do to her?

Kill her? Oh please, bring it on. Whatever is on the other side of the big white door that she's now glimpsed twice in her life has to better than this.

"My father doesn't have a clue what love means."

"Yes, he does," she replies simply, tiredly. She wearies of this argument, one they've had parts and pieces ever since he's been drugging her up.

This time is different, though. This time, she realizes quickly (not quickly enough) that he's not bantering around with her. He's actually angry. Maybe it's how tired he is. Maybe he's still in pain from his own wounds. Whatever it is, he's no more in the mood to play around than she is.

He stalks towards her, handsome and oddly graceful. When he gets to her, he lifts her up by her forearms, grinning cruelly when he sees her legs go rubbery beneath her, refusing to support her weight. "And how would you know that?" He reaches out and grabs a handful of her hair, giving it a none too gentle tug that makes her already fuzzy brain go gray. "Do you actually remember anything?"

"No," she admits. "But I know."

He laughs, but there's no humor in the tone. "You knew my mother, Lieutenant. You may not remember that right now –"

"I remember her," Wash inserts quietly. And she does. Sure, the memories are fuzzy and foggy and she can locate neither time nor place with any of them, but she absolutely recalls the face of Ayani Taylor. Could never forget it.

"…but you were friends. At least she considered you one. My fathers' favorite soldier. Bet she had no idea what was really going on in your head."

His words are biting and furious, an almost violent expulsion of rage from a boy who never quite learned how to become a man. Instead, his maturity had been frozen at the state it had been in when he'd been forced to watch his mother tortured and then butchered in front of him.

Now, a young boy who she recalls as quiet, brilliant and sensitive has been destroyed by hatred, and turned into a psychopath completely lacking in simple human compassion or care. What he's doing here is grotesque and she knows that he must know that as well. He just doesn't care anymore.

And even in her damaged state that scares the hell out of her.

"Lucas, you have to…you have to stop this." The word "please" lands on her lips, but she can't quite force it out. Isn't that far gone just yet to resort to begging.

He ignores her, instead tightening his hold on her hair. She tries not to show him her physical reaction to the pain he's causing, but the lack of active drugs in her system, her exhaustion and her head injury are cocktailing together to steal all the control she has left away from her.

"Tell me the truth: when you met my mother, were you already in love with him? Were you sleeping with him then, too?"

"No," she answers.

"I don't believe you."

She can hardly believe that she's willingly playing his game, but something in her desperately needs to make him know the truth. And though he doesn't know it or care to, she's saying what she is as much for Nathaniel's honor as for her own.

"I swear to you, Lucas, your father and I were just friends. We never did anything. We never even thought about it." She's somewhat amazed by just how strong the conviction in her words is considering that she can scarcely loop two mental images together in her head. Her memories are shattered at worst and shaky at best, but she's certain of her words.

He releases her then, his body straightening. "I believe you. You're honorable and loyal. That's what you are, what you've always been isn't it? That's what made you the perfect little soldier for my dear father. So moldable."

"Your father is a good man."

In retrospect, considering the pain she's already in, perhaps she shouldn't have said that last bit. What greets her in response is the back of his hand across her already bruised face. It's not the hardest hit she's ever absorbed, but it gets the job done just fine. Gasping in surprise, she hits the far wall of the cave they're hiding out in for the night and staggers backwards.

Well, she tells herself, at least she'll get some sleep. That's something.

Lucas, unfortunately, has other ideas for her completely. She feels him climb atop her, holding her down with a hand against each shoulder. For a moment, primal panic goes through here, and she struggles, even manages to clip him a time or two. He's so much stronger, though.

"Stop it," he growls. "Just stop. I'm not going to…I saw them do that to my mother. No matter how much I want to hurt you, I would never do that to you."

It's a sign of how terrified she is of what she'd feared he was going to do to her that she's somewhat relieved when she sees him pull out one of the syringes instead. That relief only last seconds before she's thrashing again.

She knows what will happen once he injects her – she'll slides away, her mind becoming a spectator, utterly unable to stay in control. Coming down is somehow worse simply because she's an active participant in that part, but she completely fears what her body is made to do while she's high on the stims.

And she fears what the stims are doing to her.

She's in desperate need of medical attention for her head wound. Aside from that, she exhausted and likely quite sick thanks to lack of adequate food and drink. The stims are keeping her patched together like an extremely strong brand of duct tape, but even they can't keep her moving forever.

But she supposes they don't need to.

Only long enough to get her back to Nathaniel.

That's Lucas's plan here, she figures – drug her up, control her, and then set her upon Nathaniel in a state where she won't be able to keep herself from trying to hurt him. Worse, it'll be nearly impossible to stop her without injuring her.

Either way, likely a win-win for Nathaniel's completely bent on vengeance son.

"You don't have to do this," she tells him. She thinks for a second to remind him that she's never done him any harm, always treated him kindly and with respect, but stops herself before she can – simply because she knows it doesn't matter.

His hatred towards her boils down to two things – her love for his father and her loyalty towards him. Those, in Lucas's book, are unforgivable offenses.

He smiles almost lazily at her, then slams the syringe into her arm. She gasps in pain, ghosts of previous injections making her flesh at the point of injection extremely sensitive. Which she know won't compare at all to how her skin will feel in a few minutes – once he's cocktailed the stims.

"I'll see you in a few hours," he tells her, just before he pushes the second syringe into her. "On your way back down."

* * *

><p>He stands outside of the Commander's office for almost five minutes (hell, maybe more, he thinks as he shifts foot to foot) before the deep voice sighs and says, "You going to stay out there all day or come in and talk to me, Shannon?"<p>

"I'm coming in, sir," Jim replies quietly, stepping inside.

When he sees the wary expression on Jim's face, Taylor immediately stands, his muscles coiling in anticipation. "What's wrong? Problem on the recon?"

"No. Everything was fine. Everyone is fine. But we…uh…I think we found her."

"Her? Was...Wash?"

"Yes, sir. Her tags at least." He holds up the wrecked pieces of metal, allowing them to catch the light in the room. They seem to gleam a bit. "The tracker is completely broken. Not quite sure how, but it looks like the tags took some of the sonic blast that Lucas hit her with."

"Makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose. Where did you find them?" Taylor asks as he takes the tags from Jim, turning them over in his hands. He touches a button on the side, the one that should power it up, but it's too far damaged for that. He'll need to pull out the memory card by hand, and see what she has on it. Alive, the idea would infuriate her, but in the next world, he has to think she'd want him to see what she held most dear to her.

"About three clicks north. Around the Sutter Fork."

Taylor frowns at that. "Awful long way to go to bury bodies. You find anyone else out there?"

"No, sir. We were thinking maybe she got…"

"Dragged there by the wildlife."

"Yeah."

"I see. Thank you."

"Sure. Anything you need, Commander?"

"No. But thank you for not giving up until you found these. That means a lot to me, Shannon. It'd mean a lot to her."

"She meant a lot to my family, sir. And to me."

Taylor nods, then turns his attention back to the tags. He doesn't even hear Jim let himself out, doesn't really care. A few seconds later, he's got his knife out of his belt and is working on prying the memory card out.

Everything else can wait.

* * *

><p>Somewhat shockingly, he's not always an insufferable bastard on her way down from the stims (which thanks to her prior exposure to the drugs occurs about three times a day – a hideously painful and maddening cycle indeed).<p>

Sometimes, he says nothing at all to her, instead just puts a blanket over her to help lessen the harsh tremors going through her abused body. Other times, he helps her eat (normally this would be humiliating for her, but she's not so proud as to be willing to go without food – in this case some kind of broth – just to make a point) and then holds her when her stomach inevitably tries to reject the food just a few hours later. On those occasions, she feels him rubbing her back, whispering into her ear, telling her everything is going to be just fine.

Strange words from a man she knows is trying to destroy her. But for reasons she can't completely understand (though she suspects she could if she could just remember), his odd occasional caretaker behavior has a ring of honesty to it. Like maybe this is something he actually likes to do – maybe even enjoys doing.

One night, while she's shaking like a junkie in withdrawal (which she realizes with some degree of bitterness is exactly what she is now), he slides himself behind her, and loops an arm around her, pulling her to his chest.

Normally, she'd protest or fight back, but right now he's very warm, and she's quite the opposite, and the way her head feels, she's struggling to remember why she hates this man so much. She knows the reasons are there, but for the life of her, she can't quite figure out why they matter.

"Tell me a story?" he asks, intertwining the fingers of his right hand with hers. It's an intimate motion, but she makes no move to pull away.

"About what?" she whispers in response to his rather bizarre request, her teeth chattering. He pulls her closer, the fingers of his left hand settling atop her cotton covered abdomen. She feels him drawing lazy circles there, each touch far more intense then he realizes. Thankfully, as the withdrawal increases, the sensitivity of her skin decreases. A weird and not necessarily beneficial trade-off.

"Whatever you remember."

"I don't remember much."

"I know. Tell me about my mother." Such an oddly childish request indeed.

Wash thinks about this for a moment, trying to force her exhausted brain to function. She finally manages to pull forth a mental image of Ayani Taylor.

"I remember…I think I do anyway…the first time I met her."

"Is my father in this story?"

It takes her a few seconds, but then she shakes his head. "Not really. He wasn't able to come home so he sent me instead."

"Tell me."

* * *

><p><em>2135. Somalia.<em>

_She's on leave. Four days of it to be exact. Her plan had been to spend it lying on her back, sound asleep in a rented hotel room in one of the relatively safe parts of town. Far away from the pain and violence of the war. If she gets around to wanting some action, there's a bar just down the street for that._

_Course all of her best laid plans had changed just a few minutes before she'd been due to get on the transport that would have taken her from the base to the hotel. It's a six hundred mile trip, but in these fast little taxis, it'll take about an hour total. Or at least it would have._

_Just before leaving, her CO Nathaniel Taylor had come to her asking for a favor. He can't get away – his own leave had been canceled – but he'd been concerned because hadn't heard from his wife in close to a week. Could she maybe do a drop-by visual check-in? Just to make sure Ayani and his son Lucas are okay. He knows that it's out of her way, and could end up consuming her leave, but it's vitally important to him, and he only feels right sending someone he trusts._

_That's what does it – that one word: trust. That and she'd learned real quick that she pretty much sucks at saying no to him about anything._

_She agrees immediately, never letting him see the disappointment she feels at the loss of her do-nothing plans. He thanks her, tells her he owes her one. She promises that one day, she'll collect on that. He smiles and says he'll be waiting._

_The village his wife is living in with her and Nathaniel's son takes almost a full day to get to. She spends the time reading through prior mission debriefings, and looking over research on the latest in field medical aide – including case studies on the new hot drug of the moment also known as Level One Stimulants._

_Back during her in-training days at the hospital in Mogadishu, like every other medic there, she'd used the Level 2s and 3s every now and again in order to help her through the longest of the emergency care shifts. They'd always given her the energy and focus she needed to stay alert and awake, but the side effects had been unsettling to say the least. After one fairly bad come-down, she'd sworn them off even as her peers had increased their usage dramatically._

_These new Level One stimulants seem like they're taking everything bad about the 2s and 3s (and there there's already so much bad there), and making them that much worse. That and some of the docs are talking about cocktailing them. Yeah, no thanks, she thinks to herself as she sets down her plexpad. She turns to gaze out the window. It's muggy, smoggy and overcast outside._

"_Your stop is up next, ma'am," the driver states. He glances back at her through his rearview mirror, taking in her neatly pressed almost off the rack clean BDUs. _

_When the taxi comes to a stop outside of a dusty depot, she offers him her travel ticket. He scans it, hands it back, and wishes her a great day, his eyes seeming to say that he'll probably never see her again. She repeats his words back to him, then gets the hell away from him. In her time in the military, she's come to dread meeting people who view soldiers as broken dolls. She knows the look – sympathy and pity. And damned if she doesn't hate that._

_She makes her way to Nathaniel's house, small and unassuming. A place to get away from the drama of war. The village around is something she's seen only a few times before – a true look at community. It's kind of amazing to see the way these people interact with one another, like they actually care about each other. _

_Returning to the reason she's here at all, she lifts up her hand and knocks on the door, then stands there waiting, her hands clasped behind her back. It takes a few moments, but then the door is opening and a woman she has only seen in pictures is standing in front of her with one of the most stunning smiles that she has ever seen. Ayani Taylor is somewhat petite, though far from small. She's in her late forties, but still incredibly striking with piercing green eyes._

"_Hello?" Ayani asks after a moment has passed, and Wash has said nothing in which to explain her presence (though her uniform likely somewhat does that)._

_Wash regains her composure quickly. "Ma'am," she says, extending a hand. "Private Alicia Washington. Lieutenant Commander Taylor was concerned that he hadn't heard from you for a few days. He asked me to check in on you." It occurs to her that this must have happened at least once before because Ayani hardly seems startled or surprised as most spouses would be if they saw a soldier appear on their doorstep while their loved one was in the middle of war._

"_Did he now?" Ayani asks with more amusement than is probably warranted. "Honestly, the man worries entirely too much. As you can see, I'm just fine. I was just busy. But nevermind that. Come in, you look tired."_

"_I'm fine, ma'am."_

"_Ah, I see you've been through the Nathaniel Taylor school of lying through your teeth whenever someone asks you how are," Ayani chuckles. Then, before Wash can protest, she gestures for the private to enter her house. "My son, Lucas, is still at school. He should be home soon. I'm sure he'll have a lot of questions for you – he always has a thousand for his father every time he returns here."_

"_Must be hard on him not seeing his son as much as he'd like to."_

"_It's hell. Not that he'd ever admit it."_

_They share a small smile, one of understanding. Wash has only been serving with Nathaniel for about eighteen months now, but even she knows how fiercely proud Taylor is. He rarely if ever admits to the demons in his own head – especially the ones that hurt the most as she knows this one surely must. _

_Wash follows Ayani inside, glancing around the home as she does so. It's serene for the most part, clearly influenced by Ayani's tastes. Every now and again, though, she sees signs of Nathaniel. A few pictures on the wall of him with game, one with him with his family, proudly showing them off._

"_He must be quite fond of you to have sent you to do this," Ayani notes as she leads them towards the Living Room. "He doesn't trust just anyone to this."_

"_I suppose so, ma'am," Wash answers, hoping that the smaller woman will allow this particular line of conversation to drop away quickly (she still isn't completely sure she buys Taylor's line about sending only someone he trusts because she figures that he trusts almost everyone in the unit). Mercifully, as if reading the private perfectly, Ayani does exactly that, changing the subject._

"_So, I'm taking it they revoked his leave again?"_

"_They did, ma'am."_

"_Private, how about we make this easy for both of us. You can feel free to call me Ayani if I may call you Alicia?"_

"_Yes, ma'am."_

"_Starting now perhaps?"_

_Wash smiles at that, and nods. "He sends his regrets. He was really looking forward to this trip home."_

"_I know he was. I was as well. Lucas, too. But when you marry a military man, especially one like Nathaniel, you know what's expected of you." She sighs, then waves her hand in the air as if brushing away all of the dark emotions. "I assume you'll be staying for dinner, yes?" Her tone is light, but Wash would be a fool not to hear the slight order beneath it. Apparently, despite the appearance of being more teacher than soldier, Ayani Taylor is every bit the leader._

"_I'd be honored."_

"_We'll see about that. I was planning on a simple vegetable soup tonight."_

_Wash laughs. "If you know the kind of food we've been eating, you'll understand when I say that a simple vegetable soup has never sounded better to me."_

"_Unfortunately, I do know. But unlike you, apparently, Nathaniel is quite fond of tasteless jerky and beans in a can."_

"_That's because that's all he can cook," Wash cracks._

_Ayani lets out a full belly laugh at that. "So you do know my husband. And you're not wrong. Every time he comes home, I have to remind him what real food is."_

"_He's been banned from cooking while we're out on mission. Every time he does, someone willingly chooses to go without dinner. Usually me," Wash tells her as she takes three plates from Ayani and starts setting the table._

"_That's not the first time I've heard that." She offers Wash three glasses. "So tell me, Alicia, what do you do for the unit? You don't have the look of a gunner."_

"_I'm the units' chief medic, ma'am. Well, actually I'm mostly your husbands' medic," Wash tells her, wondering if maybe she should shut her mouth. Nathaniel had provided her with absolutely no instructions on what she should or should not say to Ayani, but most likely, she figures, he hadn't intended for her start yammering on about his food and health habits. And yet there's something about Ayani that makes her want to spill every secret that she's ever had._

_Well, almost every secret._

"_Some things will never change," Ayani sighs. "When I first met Nathaniel, he was lying in the middle of a road covered in blood from a motorcycle accident. He'd flipped it, and nearly caved his head in. I helped take care of him until an ambulance arrived. He asked me out on the way to the hospital. So of course I said yes. And you know what? Two weeks later, he was back up on that damned bike like nothing had ever happened."_

"_That's the Lieutenant Commander all right," Wash confirms. _

"_Well, thank you for keeping him put together. I'm rather fond of the man."_

_Wash doesn't respond with the first thing that goes through her mind – something along the lines of "so am I", but instead replies, "It's my pleasure."_

"_Oh, I doubt that. Fixing him up every five seconds probably just about drives you half insane," Ayani chuckles as she opens the refrigerator. "Would you care to have a beer with me before dinner, Private?"_

"_I probably shouldn't, ma'am."_

"_Relax, Alicia, you're on leave, yes?"_

"_Kind of."_

"_Except Nathaniel asked you to do this instead of what you would have preferred to do, right?" Before Wash can deny it, Ayani holds up her hand, "I know, it's an honor, but it's also a giant inconvenience. My husband sometimes is blind to the needs of others. He's a wonderful man, Alicia, but terribly short-sighted at times."_

"_I honestly don't mind," Wash counters. "This village is…it's kind of incredible. Everything I wish I'd had when I was growing up."_

"_That's what he said, too, when he brought us here. Not sure if you noticed on your way in, but he's been slowly but surely moving the families of many of your fellow soldiers in. Nathaniel likes to keep those he cares for as close as he can."_

"_Ah," Wash says. "And now I get it." _

"_I'm guessing as honored as you were to take on this little mission for him, you've still been wondering why it had to be you to do this job." Off Wash's somewhat annoyed nod, the woman continues with a broad smile, "And now you're realizing that he probably sent you here to do more than just check in on me?" _

"_I don't know why I'm surprised. The man always has an agenda," Wash growls, running a hand through her hair. It's up in a ponytail, and she finds that she's looking forward to shedding her uniform just so that she can let her locks down. _

"_Did you mention to him recently that you were looking to move?" Ayani probes._

"_A couple weeks ago. Not that I'm ever at the apartment I have now. I just wanted something…safer. He didn't say anything at the time. I should have known he was up to something. He's always up to something." She's ranting a bit, and it's wholly unprofessional to be so openly annoyed with her CO – especially considering she's speaking to his wife, and yet she feels like opening up to Ayani is almost absurdly easy to do. The woman is just so…comfortable._

"_Yes, he is," Ayani replies affectionately. "All right then, now that we know why you're here, I insist you have a drink with me. You've checked in on me as asked. As such, you are now off-duty, and therefore allowed to drink, yes?"_

"_Affirmative."_

"_Then it's settled." She offers Wash a bottle, the cap already off. "Not the best there's ever been, but hardly that pisswater the military gives you to drink."_

"_The Lieutenant Commander is pretty good at finding us good liquor."_

"_Always has been." She holds up the bottle and clinks it against Wash's. "Cheers, Private. And welcome to our little slice of heaven."_

* * *

><p>"I remember that," Lucas murmurs. "When I got home, you and my mom were drinking on the front doorstep."<p>

"I never got the chance to move in," Wash whispers, the shadows dancing in front of her eyes. She's almost all the way down now, her body shaking fiercely. The pain in her skull is growing, intensifying with each blink of her eyes.

"Why not? You had plenty of time to."

"I don't remember," she answers, then winces as a sharp stabbing pain in her head just about steals her vision away.

"Are you in pain?" His tone has changed from an almost wistfully gentle one back to the strange cruelly curious one. His grip around her has hardened as well, becoming possessive and controlling as opposed to compassionate.

She clenches her jaw shut, refuses to answer even though it's quite clear she is.

"I know you are, Alicia. You know, you should thank me for what I'm doing. Nothing hurts when you're on the stimulants."

"I'd rather be in pain than be controlled."

"You've always been controlled. By the military, by every CO you've had. By my father and now by me. I'd think you'd find it comforting."

She just glares at him in response.

"Have it your way, Lieutenant. But no stims for now. I'm going to let you try to sleep for a few hours. You body needs it, and I need you to hold up at least until I give you back to my father as his birthday surprise."

She blinks at that, trying to connect his words to an actual memory and coming up empty. It's like that date just isn't in her head anymore.

"You forgot didn't you? It's five days from now. Going to be one hell of a show."

He gets up then, wraps the blanket back around her (almost lovingly) and then wanders off, headed in the direction of the opening of the cave. She's not bound, but it hardly matters; she couldn't stand up right now if she tried.

And Lord knows she's tried.

Instead, she drops her head back and tries to sleep.

It comes almost immediately, and for a few short hours, she actually heals.

* * *

><p>It takes Nathaniel Taylor almost two hours to break into her tags. The thin metal encasing is so twisted and damaged that he has to be gentle about how he pries the tiny memory card out. He probably should have taken this task to Boylan, but the idea of anyone else getting to see what she has on the tags is just about more than he can handle. For once, he chooses to be selfish.<p>

Once he has the memory card, he slips it into the opening on his plexpad, and waits (impatiently) as it reads the data on it. There's a soft sputter, and for a long moment, he thinks the card isn't going to read at all.

And then he sees the pictures.

Five total, about as much as the card can hold if she has other things on it like music and videos (he's somewhat amused that his almost painfully by the book lieutenant has not only hacked her tags, but done so completely, putting every kind of media contraband on them).

The first pic is one of her with the unit from back in Somalia. Everyone is covered in dirt and blood, but they're smiling and holding up beers. Cheering on a victory. It's a wonderful photo, but a heartbreaking one because he realizes that he's the only one in it that is still alive.

The second pic is one of her in a hospital room. He's never seen the image before, but he's guessing it's one that someone else had taken after she'd woken up from her near fatal shooting. He wonders why it's there, thinks maybe she'd kept it to remind herself about how she's survived when she'd had no right to.

The third pic is one of the two of them at her commendation ceremony. It'd been the first time they'd seen each other since Ayani's murder and her near death experience. She'd limped up to the stage, her body recovering, but clearly still hurting. She'd refused to take his arm, instead stubbornly insisted she make it up to the platform on her own. And of course, she had. In the photo, they're standing shoulder to shoulder. He's smiling widely, she with a bit reserve as always.

The fourth pic he remembers well, like it was yesterday. It'd been taken on their first day together in Terra Nova. He'd been filthy from one hundred and eighteen days in the wild, and she'd been flushed from the exposure to fresh air, but they'd both been beaming as they'd embarked on their new beginning. Their second chance. It'd been a day so full of promise and hope.

The fifth pic is the one that just about does him in. It shows him sleeping half-naked on her couch (actually, he muses, considering there's a blanket thrown over his lower body, he's probably completely unclothed), looking comfortable and at ease. Even at peace one might say. The time stamp on the picture shows it to be about a year old. On his birthday actually.

He recalls the events of that afternoon, remembers how Wash had tried to give him a quiet no-fuss day like they'd both have enjoyed, and had instead ended up being forced to endure a massive colony-wide shindig. None of which had compared to the party that had happened once they'd returned to her quarters.

Ah yes, that's where the couch had come in, he reminds himself.

The memory brings a smile to his face, which quickly fades away to a grimace of anguish. He's not yet ready to see only the happy moments, not able to separate the pain of her loss from the joy of her presence.

He touches the picture, his fingers ghosting over it. "You weren't supposed to go first," he whispers. "Why do you always have to go first?

There's no answer, of course. He hadn't really expected one. That doesn't make it any easier. Not even a little bit.

* * *

><p>He can see her coming apart, and is starting to understand just why these stims are such bad news. When she's on them, she's locked in and hard core, but she completely lacks all ability to feel any kind of emotion. Even pain is alien to her.<p>

Just a few days out of Terra Nova (and three days until his father's sixtieth birthday), he tests this theory by taking her hand and breaking one of her fingers. It's violent, and completely unnecessary, but curiosity gets the best of him.

She barely reacts to the pain.

When she comes down that night, she's in shock, and her fever spikes high. She drifts in and out of a delirious state for a few hours, crying out. He finally re-injects her with a stim (a bit early) just to calm her.

He almost feels bad for her.

And then she calls out his fathers' name, and everything inside of him shatters once more.

**TBC…**


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Again, thanks for the kind words. They've been awesome. This is a bit of a transitional chapter here, but it moves us along, back to Terra Nova. There's still lots more Wash story yet to be. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Two weeks after the re-taking of Terra Nova, and one week after the incredibly moving memorial for Lieutenant Washington, the colony starts to finally look like itself again. It helps that while the Phoenix guys had done a lot of damage, they hadn't really rocked the foundations of the colony, which makes the rebuilding that much easier. At least physically if not metaphorically anyway.<p>

On the fourteenth day back, the pre-dawn patrol finally starts up again. For years, Nathaniel Taylor has done this perimeter walk with his lieutenant, always rising before the sun each and every morning.

On this first morning back on the walk, Jim Shannon joins him instead.

Almost immediately, Taylor notices that Shannon is oddly – especially for him – subdued. He's sipping from a thermos of coffee, but not saying a word. It's weird and a bit unsettling for Nathaniel. Mostly because Jim Shannon is never quiet.

Taylor chuckles at that, which makes the sheriff look over at him, an eyebrow arched, curiosity written across his handsome features. "Commander?"

"Just thinking about you."

"Me? Should I be worried?"

"No…I just…I noticed that you're awfully quiet this morning, Shannon." He pauses for a moment, then adds (with a degree of forced – but not completely unappreciated by Jim – levity), "I think Wash would have appreciated that."

"Figured you would, too, sir," Jim tells him. There's more than a hint of sadness in his tone, like he hasn't quite come to the place that Taylor is pretending that he has. The Commander has lost so many people before – including his wife. He knows how to act like he's handling things well even if there's no possible way that he could be. He knows how to look strong for everyone. Like he's healing and recovering just fine.

But he's not, and anyone who knows the Commander even a little bit knows that. That said, they're all going to allow him to play the part because truth be told, everyone around Terra Nova needs the strong and put together Nathaniel Taylor, not the one who would like little more than to disappear into his quarters and with the help of ample amounts of alcohol, grieve the loss of yet another loved one.

So Taylor pretends to be healing, getting better with each day

Jim, on the other hand, is downright awful at being able to hide what he's feeling at any given moment. When he's angry or frustrated or irritated, it shows.

It was the one of the traits he'd shared with the lieutenant. She'd certainly been better at masking herself behind military training, but he'd always known when she'd been in one of her less than pleasant moods. He'd been able to read her like a book, much to her absolute annoyance and chagrin.

Right now, the emotion Jim's having a hell of a time hiding is guilt. He feels the loss of his friend deeply in his soul, but more than that, he's aware of how her absence is affecting others – like the Commander and like Reynolds.

She'd laid down her life for him and his family. That's the kind of debt that doesn't get repaid with one act or even a thousand. It's a life debt that requires justifying the sacrifice. Which is all to say that Jim Shannon intends to ensure that what Wash had done for he and has family will never be forgotten.

And he starts that by doing something that he knows she'd want; making for damn sure that the Commander is watched over.

"I like quiet in the morning," Taylor admits. "It's a nice time to see nature waking up. It's quite lovely out this early."

"If you say so."

Taylor stops, turns towards the younger man, and grips his left shoulder. "You don't have to do this, Jim. Go home, climb back in bed. I'm sure your wife would prefer you be there rather than here."

"Actually, Commander, she doesn't really care. She sleeps pretty heavy. And she has cold feet."

Taylor laughs at that. "Wash did, too."

And then just like that, he starts walking again.

Jim knows he should let it go, shouldn't push on what he's just heard, but he can't help himself. It's his nature to pull on threads even when doing so runs the risk of causing the entire ball of yarn to come wildly undone.

He catches up to Taylor, moving in step with him. Lets a few seconds pass, and then quietly, as respectfully as he can manage, "So you two _were_ together?" He'd always suspected, even assumed it, but for the first time, he's pretty sure that he's hearing confirmation – albeit a rather heartbreaking one - of it.

Taylor doesn't reply for several minutes, long enough to make Jim think that maybe he isn't going to answer at all. The cop is even considering dropping the subject all together (too soon, he thinks) when Nathaniel says softly, "We were."

And then he moves off, towards the Command Tower.

Nathaniel Taylor isn't a man that spends a lot of time talking over feelings. He's loved – truly loved - exactly two women in his life. They've both been taken from him in inexplicable acts of horrific violence. What he feels right now, there are no words for. Simple emotions can't define the depth of his hurt or his loss.

He won't even try to make them.

Jim watches him go, his expression growing grimmer. He thinks about his family, wonders what it would be like to lose Elizabeth.

He hopes to God that he never has to find out.

* * *

><p>The first real signs that her psyche may already be coming apart show themselves with two days to go until his father sixtieth birthday.<p>

This time, on her way down from the stims (he's started cocktailing different ones, just to see how they alter her personality – he's discovered that if he mixed blue and red, she becomes extraordinarily violent whereas green and yellow make her very pliable), she starts rambling on about neutral zones and evac sites and other such related issues.

He thinks maybe she's delirious thanks to fever again, but after a few minutes, he realizes that it's more like she's experiencing a flashback episode. One where she actually believes that she's back in Somalia. In the middle of the war again.

"Lieutenant," Lucas calls out, grabbing at her forearms. His hands are warm against her unnaturally cold skin, but if she notices, she doesn't show it.

Instead, she pushes him roughly away from her and starts pacing around, barking out orders to men and women only she sees. He hears names he recalls vaguely from his youth – people his father had trained and then eventually, inevitably buried. She calls out for someone named Harrison, asks where the hell Taylor is. Then grunts in disgusts and curses rather colorfully. He notices with some degree of amusement mixed with morbid curiosity that she seems not to be noticing that her hand is injured – one of its fingers broken (by him). She's waving it around, speaking loudly and demonstratively.

He could stop her if he really wanted to – no matter what kind of episode she's having, he's still much stronger than she is right now – but he chooses not to. He's curious and intrigued. And so for almost a half hour, he watches as she weaves her way through some dark and terrible memory of her past.

It's utterly fascinating what he sees. She's agitated and irritated, yelling at men that only she sees. She keeps looking around as if expecting something to come at her from behind her. And she keeps asking where Nathaniel Taylor is.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, bored with the bizarre show, which seems like it will never end, he grabs her arm roughly and spins her, causing her legs to give out from under her. She tumbles to the ground, slamming her knees against the hard rocky surface. It's the pain she feels when that happens that snaps her out of her violent flashback episode.

From the ground, she looks up and sees Lucas, but her expression is strange, like she doesn't completely recognize him.

"Lucas?" she gasps after a long moment.

"Right here, Alicia," he responds, choosing to play along with her.

"Where are we?" she asks, looking around her. "Are we still in Somalia?"

"No. We're near Terra Nova now."

"Terra Nova? What is that? Is it a camp? Where's your father? And why do you look so different?" There's alarm in her tone, like she knows something is very wrong. She tries to move but her body won't cooperate.

"Take it easy, Alicia. You're badly injured. You need to rest. Just close your eyes. Everything will feel better and make more sense when you wake up."

For reasons she can't explain, she doesn't believe a word he's saying. She also can't manage to keep herself from losing consciousness.

* * *

><p>"Maybe we should cancel it," Jim says as he comes around to the front of the table. It's just after dinner time, and the kids are all doing their separate things allowing him a bit of quiet time with Elizabeth. "It's the last thing he wants."<p>

"I know, and if he was anyone else, I would agree. But he's not, Jim," Elizabeth reminds him, stepping into her husbands' strong arms. "If we cancel his birthday celebration, people will take that as a sign that we're not recovering. That's he not okay."

"He's not okay, Liz. How could he be?"

"Jim," she chides. "I agree with you. And if it were you…I don't know how I'd be. But no one else knew about their relationship. She was a solider and a good friend to him. Unless he wants to start telling everyone…"

"He barely told me."

"Exactly. Which means business as usual."

"Right," Jim sighs, sliding his arms her and holding her tight. "I keep thinking," he says, "That I should have tried to change her mind."

"If you had, we probably would never have made it out. And we never would have retaken the colony. She knew what she was doing. She made the choice knowing what would happen. Don't take that away from her."

"I don't want to take it away from her. I just…"

"Wish it hadn't happened."

"Yeah."

"Me, too."

* * *

><p>He's holding her in his arms when she comes back to her senses just a few hours later, the pain radiating through her skull nearly blinding. When it's obvious that she has to, he very gently helps her turn over to throw up the water and soup that she'd ingested earlier that day. Once again, she hears him whispering soft words into her ear, telling her that it's going to be okay.<p>

And once again, though she can't remember why, the way he's acting feels so familiar to her. And so right. Like maybe this was how he was meant to be instead of how he actually turned out.

When she's done throwing up, she turns back over in his arms, lays against his chest and reaches up to touch his cheek, desperate to feel warm flesh beneath her shaking fingertips. He can feel the tremors winding their way through her, and he thinks to himself that absent desperately needed medical assistance, she hasn't much time left before she'll succumb to her vast and terrible injuries.

"Do you know where you are?" he asks once she's stilled. "What year it is?"

"2149," she gasps, wincing as every word takes considerable effort to grind out.

"Yeah. For awhile you were…somewhere else."

"Thanks to you," she answers, remembering in a flash how all of this came to be. The images are hazy and unfocused, but there's no doubt that he's responsible for her damaged and broken state.

"I'm doing what I have to do," he insists.

"And I'm dying because of it."

"You are," Lucas confirms, putting his hand over hers. "But not before we both do what we need to do. We can both make it that long." His tone is soft, gentle, almost understanding of the pain she's going through. Almost sympathetic.

"Lucas…he can help us…"

That's all it takes for him to remember what he's doing and why. He won't be knocked off course by silly things such as empathy and compassion. None of those monsters in Somalia had felt any of that for their victims. Everyone hurt had been simply a means to an end – and so too, for him, is Alicia Washington.

"I have a story for you, too," Lucas tells her, his hand squeezing hers, much harder now, almost uncomfortably. "One I think you've read about, but probably never really heard about. I'm guessing my father didn't invite you into his bed by first talking about his dead wife. Or…did he?"

Even in her state, his words crack against her like a fist to the face. The idea that she had climbed over Ayani's body to get to Nathaniel burns at her. It's so far from the truth, but more than that, it cuts right to the deeply buried inferiority complex she's always had when it comes to his beloved long buried wife.

"That's not how it happened," she insists, wondering vaguely why she feels the need to explain herself to this little bastard. She and Nathaniel had always gone to great lengths to keep their relationship private and quiet, but of course some had known (such as Guzman) or suspected (as she's certain Shannon had).

She'd long wondered if Lucas had known about them. Apparently, he had.

"I'm sure it's not. But shush now, I've got one hell of a bedtime story for you, Lieutenant. It's a real…heartbreaker."

* * *

><p>2138. Somalia.<p>

_He's fourteen years old, and he's taking college courses, some of which quite literally bore him to tears. There's only so much knowledge to be found around this little village, though. What there is, Lucas Taylor absorbs like the sun soaking up drops of water on the ground._

_On the day they come, he's sitting on the porch of his house, long legs up on the rail, a plexpad on his knees. He's reading through what most ordinary people – including his father - would consider an unbelievably boring book on the theories of astrophysics, and all he can think is, this dude who wrote is a complete moron who doesn't know what the hell he's going on about. _

_He hears the sounds of their tanks before he hears or sees anything else. It's just a loud obnoxious rumbling noise somewhere in the distance. Then he sees the dust rising up into the air, clogging his sinuses. He stands up and watches as they approach, not quite understanding what's occurring._

_His mother does, though._

_She comes outside, eyes wide with a kind of panic and fear that he's never seen before. She puts an arm around him and says, "Go inside. Hide."_

_He shakes his head. "No."_

"_Lucas, please. Now isn't the time." She turns him towards the house. "Hide in the attic. They won't find you."_

_But he's not leaving his mother out here on the porch alone. She's clearly afraid, and absent his father, he's the man of this house. It's his job to take care of her. _

_When the men get out of their vehicles, there are dozens and dozens of them. They're dressed in fatigues and they're carrying monstrous weapons and speaking in a language he doesn't know or understand. They're laughing, and amused by what they see – women and children with almost no defenses._

_Still, to their credit, the people of this little village don't go easily. They're the wives and kids of soldiers, and so they put up at least a small fight. Small being the operative word. It's over within minutes, and everyone is rounded up._

_And then strangely enough, the soldiers do little else but wait._

_Several days pass. The soldiers get bored and start playing around with their hostages. No one is hurt badly, but the psychological torture is monstrous. Women are molested (though not out and out assaulted) and children beaten, but no lines are crossed. Not yet anyway. Everyone can tell that the worst is yet to come. They just don't understand what the worst is to be._

_Lucas does, though._

_He's fourteen, and out of sight and out of mind, but he understands perfectly what's occurring here. His fathers' library is comprehensive, and full of books on war strategy. He's read the chapters that deal with sacking villages and terrorizing civilians. He knows that what is happening here is all about taking from the soldiers that are winning the war – in this case, his father and his unit._

_It's about making the losses personal. And they are. Terribly so._

_The end game happens four days after the tanks roll in. His father and his men – curiously absent the woman that many within the unit have come to see as his second in command despite the fact that she's just a medic – return home after fifteen days of intense jungle fighting. _

_They're exhausted, and returning to their houses and families believing that they're coming home for a brief break from the hell they've been knee-deep in._

_Instead, they're dumped into a whole other vat of it._

_They enter the village to find their loved ones lined up against the walls of every building, guns pointed at their heads. The shocked and horrified soldiers are then told that they have an option – they can pick someone to live or they can lose every one they have ever loved. His fathers' men are tired and worn down, but they're willing to fight if it means they can win. But they can't, and they know it._

_Each man makes his or her choice._

_Including his father._

_While he waits to die (because surely, his father will choose his mother – as he should), Lucas watches as the women who are chosen to die are raped and brutalized. The children are all executed quickly, almost mercifully so. He thinks to himself that it's a shame really because there were so many things that he'd wanted to do, but as the man of the house, it's better this way._

_And then his father speaks, and says softly in a voice he barely hears, "I choose the boy to live."_

_His mother lets out a soft sob, and he sees her nod her head in agreement (of course she does, that hardly justifies the choice), but if she says something else, Lucas doesn't hear it. He's too busy screaming at his father, begging him to change his mind._

_His father doesn't._

_A few minutes later, it's his mother who's screaming._

* * *

><p>Nathaniel wakes up gasping for air from a nightmare that he's had a hundred times (if not far more than that). It's the one of Ayani being brutalized in the middle of the home that he had brought her to. He had wanted her close – and safe. The irony of having wanted the same for Wash isn't lost on him. Nor is the reality that his choices had likely damned them both.<p>

He rubs at his eyes, then crawls out of bed. He makes his way to the front room, and stops. Looking around, he sees the signs of everywhere. No, she hadn't ever moved in with him – that would have meant coming out to everyone – but she had left quite the impression on his living space. As he had hers.

On the bookcase, he sees a plexpad, and knows that its hers not his. He fires it up, and looks over the listing of novels. She's been someone who'd always enjoyed a good spy thriller, sometimes a crime-solving tale.

He puts the plex down, and paces his quarters. After a few moments, he steps outside, inhales the fresh air.

"Commander?" he hears. He turns and sees Reilly there, watching him, her eyebrow slightly lifted.

"Reilly," he nods. "Patrol?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry if I startled you."

"You didn't. And before you ask, I'm fine."

She doesn't believe him for a minute. She also knows better than to indicate such. Instead, she nods her head. "Anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Just be safe, Corporal."

It's an utterly bizarre thing for the Commander to say, but she has the sense to reply in a manner that doesn't show her worry. "Will do, sir. Goodnight, Commander."

"Goodnight, Reilly. Oh, and Corporal?"

"Sir?"

"If I didn't tell you already, you did damn good work when we were outside. I'm extremely proud of you."

"I was trained by the best, sir," Reilly responds. And to her mind, she had been. The lieutenant had seen to it, putting the younger woman through drills that would have made the old the old Marine Corps DIs proud.

"Yes, you were," Taylor agrees.

She's about to reply when her eyes catch on digital read-out of her sonic rifle. It's just a few minutes after midnight. "Sir," she says. "It's your birthday."

He chuckles. "Is it?"

She smiles at him in response, a slightly sad expression.

"Another year older," he sighs. "Carry on, Corporal."

Reilly nods, spares one last look at Taylor, then moves off. As she walks down the path, her eyes going every which way, she makes a mental note to speak to Jim Shannon again about the Commander. No matter what he says, he's clearly not doing well at all. Which means someone has to watch out for him.

Which means everyone has to watch out for him.

Because that's what Wash would want.

* * *

><p>The day of his fathers' sixtieth birthday (an event he's assuming will be celebrated whether his father wants it to be or not), he allows his captive to have a few moments of lucidity and self-awareness.<p>

Instead of giving her the cocktail, he injects her with only the yellow stim. Her senses are humming, and her body is aching with pain and over sensitivity, but at least she's still within her own mind, able to think for herself for the first time in awhile.

As a weird kind of mercy – his version of a last meal perhaps, he lets her spend some quiet time down at a stream, bathing and cleaning herself.

Which isn't to say he doesn't watch. Not for some sick voyeuristic kind of reason (though he'd be a fool not to admit that she's beautiful in a darkly powerful kind of way), but because he doesn't trust the lieutenant not to try to either escape or try to find a way to incapacitate or even kill herself. She knows what he's intending to do to her, and it's the last thing she wants to do. Which means that she can't be left alone for even a minute.

Bathing takes her almost an hour – none of her muscles are cooperating, but she refuses his offers of help, even threatens that if he even attempts to touch her, she'll rip vital parts of him off (he doesn't doubt her).

When she's done, she announces such (almost shyly, he thinks), and waits for him to bring her a blanket before coming out of the water. It's silly really because she's not a bashful woman and he's seen everything anyway, but she's intent on not allowing him even a moment more of ownership over her.

It hardly matters to him what she does, though, because as far as he's concerned, he owns her completely anyway.

He hands her clothes – the same ones she's been wearing for the last two weeks. The ones she was wearing when he'd shot her oh so very long ago. "Put them on," he says. They're filthy and oily, but it's hardly the first time that she's been forced to wear the same clothes for a long stretch of time.

She considers refusing, but knows he'll get what he wants one way or another. If she doesn't dress herself, he'll just drug her up, and do it himself, and frankly the idea of him clothing her sickens her more than she cares to admit. She takes her time, though, enjoys his impatience probably more than she should.

When she's done, he steps towards her, touches both hands to the side of her face. "I'm going to do you a great favor," he says to her, his finger tracing over one of the bruises on her jaw. It's an almost intimate touch.

She snorts in derision.

He chuckles. "You have no faith in me, Alicia."

"Can't imagine why. Oh wait, you're a fucking homicidal lunatic, Lucas."

"No, I'm not. I'm just a boy avenging his mother."

"No, you're a boy who refuses to grow up and realize that the real world isn't clean and neat. Your father loved your mother more than you will ever know, and what you're doing right now mocks that love and mocks who she was."

She's not surprised to find herself on her knees a few moments later, blood seeping from her lip. She thinks to herself that she should probably learn when not to taunt the bad guys, but then again, after all of this time, why start now?

"He let her be destroyed, do you understand that?" He's grabbing her by the hair, pulling at her scalp, making her sees bright spots in front of her eyes. He throws her against the wall again, buries his foot into her gut. She hears a snap, assumes that he's added one of her ribs to the finger he's already broken.

"Do you think it didn't destroy him?" she gasps out, tears stinging her eyes. She coughs harshly, painfully.

"No. I think he moved on. He found someone else. He found you." He leans over her, wraps an arm around her waist and speaks the angry words into her ear.

"I'm sorry," she says simply. "But I won't be sorry for loving him."

"He will be."

And then he's slamming her down on the ground, holding her down as he jams the needle into her arm. It occurs to her almost immediately what he's doing, and panic races through her as she realizes that this time, he's not just cocktailing two of the stims.

No, this time, the little bastard is combining all four of them.

"Lucas, please…" she whispers, finally allowing the plea to escape her lips. She can feel the drugs racing through her, feel her mind being forcibly wrenched away from her. She knows that beneath all of the chemicals, she's dying anyway, and she realizes that she has almost no chance of surviving this, but what he's doing, it's too much. What he's going to make her into, it's too horrific. "Don't."

"When this is over," he tells her as her mind fogs over. "I think you'll see my mother wherever you're going because I think you're actually a good person who fell in love with a horrible man. So I think you'll see my mom. Tell her I love her."

He sounds so young, she thinks.

So sad.

So broken.

_Just like me._

* * *

><p>He doesn't want this damned party. It feels wrong. He's in no mood to celebrate getting older. Especially since he'll be doing it alone. Again.<p>

Honestly, though, that aside, he's really in no mood to celebrate anything. The only reason he allows the party at all is because the colonists so desperately need to be happy about something. So if they need him to be the figurehead for that for a few hours, he's willing to allow that.

Because that's what he does.

The celebration is brilliant really. It has her fingerprints all over it, suggesting that his lieutenant had set up the plans for it well in advance.

Well, of course she had.

It's almost eight when he finally begrudgingly takes the stage to speak to everyone, interrupting their drunken dancing. He glances around, his eyes settling on familiar faces. He remembers doing this not too long ago for a different celebration – the Harvest Festival.

He remembers seeing her standing next to Malcolm.

He takes a breath, finds the words he needs to say.

"Thank you," he tells the gathered crowd. "What you have all done today, it means a lot to me. It means everything to me. And not just because I'm another year older, but because I'm still here. Because we're still here. What we've been through, we went through as a community, and we came out on top."

The words flow from his lips – from his heart surely – but he'd be lying if he claimed that there wasn't something practiced in them. These are the words these people need to hear, ones that he's so good at delivering.

So he says them because that's what he's supposed to do.

And they clap and they cheer and he smiles and does the same.

And then all hell breaks loose.

He uses Skye's intel one last time, uses it to find an opening back into Terra Nova. There are holes in the gates – too many of them to be honest, and he crawls with the incredibly obedient lieutenant right through one of them.

And he then he waits, way in the back, watching as his father gives one of his perfect inspirational speeches. Football coaches everywhere would be envious.

Just as his father is wrapping up, he leans forward, and says to Wash, who is staring ahead without any kind of expression on her face, "The man on the stage is your enemy. Kill him, Lieutenant Washington. Do your duty."

"Yes, sir," she answers emotionlessly. Her eyes are vacant, but somehow astonishingly focused.

He presses his gun into her hand, smiles as her fingers close around it. He watches with a smile as she steps forward, lifting the weapon and aiming it with cold precision right at his fathers' heart.

And then he sees her fire.

**TBC…**


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Again, thanks for the kind words. A nod of the hat to the lovely awesome lady writers around here - Inu and Skye and Morganel and Zoe. You ladies are truly fantastic, thanks for the help and encouragement. As for this chapter, the shit hits the fan here - what's left is to clean up the mess. Please be assured that there's a method to my madness. Enjoy.

* * *

><p>Nathaniel Taylor is not a man who gets surprised easily. He's made it through far too much life and seen far too many horrible things for that to occur.<p>

What he's seeing right now, though, it surprises the living hell out of him.

Because right now, he's standing on a stage staring through a crowd of people at a woman who he's pretty damn sure is supposed to be dead. Very dead.

Only, Alicia Washington sure doesn't look dead (well, she doesn't look quite alive either, his rational mind argues as it takes in her clearly badly wounded appearance) and while this fact would normally make his heart explode with happiness, two other things he sees make him realize that perhaps her being alive isn't as wonderful a gift as it should be.

The first thing is the sight of his estranged and clearly psychotic son Lucas standing right next to her, one of his hands touching the lieutenant's left forearm in an almost possessive grasp – one that she's inexplicable not shrugging off.

The other far more troubling sight, however, is that of her staring back at her Commanding Officer – better yet, her lover and oldest friend in the world – with a blank expression in her oddly glazed over eyes. And in her right hand, he sees a hybrid pistol, one capable of firing both bullets and sonic blasts.

More important than what it fires, though, is where the gun is aimed. And that, he realizes with a cold sinking feeling in his gut, is right at his head.

Commander Nathaniel Taylor's last thought before he hears the blast of the gun and then feels himself get thrown to the ground is this: Wash doesn't miss.

Ever.

* * *

><p><em>Base Camp. 2135.<em>

_To her credit, when she joins the unit, she's already a pretty fair shot. She can – without too much effort - hit most targets, and she's not going to bury a bullet in anyone's ass by accident (which isn't to say she won't shoot someone there if they annoy her enough – he realizes almost from day one that his combat medic has quite the temper bubbling beneath her seemingly cool surface). _

_So yeah, as far as her marksmanship, twenty-two year old Corporal Alicia Washington is a perfectly acceptable shot for the United Allies Combined Military Forces. Especially considering that she's a medic and not a ground pounder. _

_She's just not good enough for her new Commanding Officer._

_On her third day in the unit, while she's still trying to figure out why she'd been specifically requested to join this extremely experienced group – Nathaniel Taylor brings her out to a field a few clicks from the main base camp and says to her in a deep voice that allows for little argument and less discussion, "Start shooting."_

_It's utterly absurd, and she does a truly terrible job of hiding the fact that she clearly thinks so. Apparently, he's amused enough by her scowling expression not to snap at her for her less than professional response._

"_Anytime you'd like to start, Corporal," he drawls, chewing on a toothpick. He'd given her the nickname of "Wash" almost immediately, but chooses not to address her as such just yet. He feels – quite correctly so - as though he needs to connect with her as her CO before he becomes her comrade. _

"_Sir, what do you want me to shoot at?" she asks after a moment because to her mind, the answer is far from obvious._

"_Doesn't matter to me. Pick a target, and nail it. Pretty simple."_

"_Yes, sir."_

_She pulls her sidearm out, aims at a tree a short distance away, and fires. It hits the trunk squarely if not directly in the middle. Still, a perfectly acceptable shot, she thinks to herself. His frown indicates that he believes differently._

"_Garbage," he says, shaking his head. _

_Her eyes widen almost comically. "Sir?" _

"_I might accept that kind of shot from a green around the gills rookie, but sure as hell not someone who has been in the Combined Forces for over a year now."_

_She briefly – and with some irritation - considers reminding him that much of that time has been spent in hospitals stitching up the wounded and close to death, but somehow, instinctively, she knows such a response will just piss him off. _

_Which truly isn't a great way to get on good terms with your new CO._

_So instead, biting back on a thousand different smartass replies, she grits her teeth, and answers with a terse, "Apologies, sir. I'll do better."_

"_Yes, you will, Corporal. Now fire again. Dead center."_

_She tries three more times. Each time, she's close. Each time, she hits the trunk. If it were a person, she reasons, they'd still be on the ground screaming in pain._

_That's still not good enough for him._

_He steps over to her, points at her weapon and holds out his hand. "May I?"_

_She hands him her sidearm. It's a powerful little pistol able to rapid fire several special lab enhanced bullets a second. Capable for sure, he thinks, but sure not as nice as some of the old-school weaponry from before the scientists had started playing around with them in order to give the Combined Forces an edge._

"_Big mistake, Wash," he tells her with another disappointed shake of his head. "Don't ever hand your gun over to anyone unless you have three more to spare." He gestures down towards his hip and then leg, where he's carrying two other guns, one of them hidden beneath his pants._

_She simply nods in response, then watches as he turns towards the target, seems to barely aim, and yet nails the center of the trunk three times in a row._

"_There we go. Easy as can be." When he sees the look on her face – half annoyance with his words and half frustration with her own performance, he continues on with, "The most important thing of all is this: don't aim, just shoot."_

_She considers for a minute telling him that what he's saying borders on blatant bullshit. Firing a weapon isn't some kind of ancient ritual that requires deep thought and meditation, she thinks. And no matter what he's saying, you do have to aim. That's how you shoot. You see a target, you aim and you fire. Anything else is just nonsense spewed for the sake of it as far as she's concerned._

_Apparently this, too, he reads in her expression. "You don't believe me?"_

_Her posture stiffens in response. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"_

"_Please, Corporal. Speak."_

_She's momentarily surprised by the permission being granted to her, but quickly recovers and pushes ahead, "No, sir, I don't believe that I'm going to become a better shot by not thinking about my target and just shooting blindly."_

"_Good," Nathaniel nods, giving her the gun back. "Because I don't either."_

_She tilts her head slightly, confusion and annoyance coloring her expression. He chuckles in response. "Sir?" she asks, almost dreading the answer._

"_I'm pissing you off, aren't I, Corporal?"_

"_No, Sir. Of course not, Sir." The edge in her tone betrays her utterly._

"_Relax. That's what I'm trying to do."_

_She blinks, then stammers out, "Why?"_

"_Because it's my job to get under your skin as deep as I can so that I can find a way to make you the best damned soldier you can possibly be. And when I'm done with you, Corporal, that's exactly what you're going to be."_

"_If you say so, Sir."_

"_I do. And for what it's worth, in a years' time, I won't be able to read you as easily as I can now. Not unless you want me to anyway. I promise you that."_

_She's immediately – though silently - thankful for that. Still, she tries not to show it because the man is already looking at her like he knows every sin she's ever committed. It's unnerving, and she knows that he has no intention of stopping._

_She decides to change the subject, get them back on track as to why they're out here by themselves in this field. "Sir, if I might be so direct…why did you bring me out here? We could have done this training at a range on the base."_

_She looks right at him when she says this, her amber eyes brazenly locked on his cobalt ones. The reality is that she barely knows this man – only knows him by his amazing reputation. It's a good one, devoid of anything that would send alarm bells ringing. Just the same, she's barely twenty-two and he's a much older forty-six. She's never been afraid to be alone with a man (medic or otherwise, Alicia Washington is still tough as nails) but she's heard more than a few stories about Commanding Officers taking advantage of young female recruits. _

_It's all a bit scary. Not because she doesn't believe she could fight him off (she's very good at the knee to the groin move), but because she realizes that she desperately doesn't want Taylor to be one of those men._

_Though she can't explain why – and wouldn't care to even if she could – she desperately needs him to actually be one of the good guys. He doesn't have to be perfect. No, perfect is pretty much useless to her. He just needs to be a good man. A man worth fighting for and with._

_Thankfully, he is._

"_I'm not sure what you were expecting when you got your reassignment orders, but let me tell you this: I didn't bring you here to my unit just to be a simple combat medic, Corporal. You're not going to be kicking back in the rear in the gear waiting to clean up a little bit of blood. On this team, you pull your weight, which means that you're going to be in the thick of things every damn day."_

"_I can handle that, Sir."_

"_Good because I also didn't bring you hear to watch you die. I want you to live, Corporal. And your shot? It's all right if you're down at the range betting beers and whiskey shots, but in the heat of battle, when your life is on the line, when my life is on the line, you need to be better than all right. You need to be…"_

"_Perfect," she finishes for him, thinking to herself how odd it is now that he is asking from her that which she had mentally excused him from having to be._

"_Exactly. Now getting back to what you said before, no, shooting isn't about not thinking. It's the opposite. You have to think about the target in your head, imagine it clear as day, line up your shot, fire and hit it. And you have to do all of that in a fraction of a second or you're dead, and it doesn't matter."_

_She wishes she could tell him that his words made sense to her, but they still don't. If he's irritated by that, though, he doesn't show it._

"_You'll get there," he tells her. "We'll start with you clocking a couple hours here and in the range every day until we head out for our next mission."_

"_Yes, Sir." To her surprise, she's hit by the almost desperate need to make this man proud – to hit every goal and every target he puts in front of her._

"_For now, since we're here anyway, I want you to keep on shooting. We have more than enough ammo and plenty of daylight. We go until you hit three in a row. Dead center. How's that sound, Corporal?"_

"_Sounds good, Sir." Then she turns back towards the tree, aims and fires._

_Two weeks later, when the unit is finally dispatched to do a sure to be bloody rescue op, she's able to hit the target dead on every single time._

_Within a years' time, he's proud to tell anyone who will listen that his feisty little combat medic just might be an even better shot than he is._

* * *

><p>It's his wife saying his name that breaks Jim Shannon out of his stunned stupor. For a long impossibly drawn out moment, he's just staring across the crowd at a woman who he saw – no, heard is more accurate – get gunned down after she'd sacrificed herself to give he and his family time to get to safety.<p>

Interestingly enough, her presumed killer had been the little bastard who Jim sees now has a rather possessive hand on the lieutenants' forearm.

In any case, she's supposed to be dead.

Only, she's not, and something is very wrong with her because right now, it sure as hell looks like she's about to kill Commander Taylor. Or at least try to.

"Jim," he hears Elizabeth whisper again.

That's all it takes and suddenly he's in motion. For the second time in a year, he's trying to stop someone from shooting Taylor. This time, he does it by racing up the small set of stairs and tackling the equally stunned senseless Commander to the floor of the stage just as the lieutenant fires her hybrid weapon (which apparently is on the bullet setting as opposed to the sonic blast one).

The bullet tears towards its target, and hits flesh, burying itself about an inch in. Only, the muscle it cuts through belongs to Jim Shannon and not Nathaniel Taylor. Which, Jim thinks through a groan of pain, is probably a good thing.

Right?

"Commander," he chokes out. "You all right?" Distantly, he hears the sound of several other bullets getting fired and screams from the gathered civilians as they all try to get to some degree of safety. And behind all of that, he's pretty sure he hears the sound of his wife calling his name – her voice coming closer as if she's rather stupidly (stubbornly – damn woman) making her way up the stage to him.

"Alive and grateful, Shannon" Taylor grumbles in response, then reaches up, slides an arm around Jim's waist and rolls them both back and behind the podium so that they can use it for cover.

Because now it occurs to Jim that the sounds of gunshots he's been hearing? That's Wash now firing completely randomly and in all directions.

"Tell me that's not who I think that is," Jim grits out as he feels Taylor press a jacket over the bloody wound on the sheriff's side. A moment later, he feels a softer hand touch him – Elizabeth's. He smiles up at her as if to tell her that she's fine, but is met with a grim look of irritation and concern in response.

"Sure as hell looks like it's her," Taylor answers, glancing up over the podium. The good news is that the rest of the soldiers – led by Reilly and Reynolds - have managed to move the clearly frightened and confused civilians to relative safety. It appears as though the bullets have caught a few arms and legs, but he doesn't see anyone lying face down like they've taken a shot to the head or back.

So hopefully that means Wash hasn't killed anyone. Yet anyway.

"What the hell is wrong with her?" Jim asks, peering around the podium to sneak a look at his friend. Her expression is almost terrifyingly blank, like she's not at all processing what she's doing. There's no emotion there. Not hate or fear.

Nothing at all.

"Don't know, but I have a pretty good idea that my boy is behind it," Taylor growls as he pulls his gun from his holster. "You going to be okay?"

"Yeah. Stop her before she hurts anyone else," Jim answers with a pained nod. Elizabeth is pushing down on the wound now, trying to slow the flow of blood.

"That's the plan."

He starts to rise, but gets stopped by Jim grabbing his arm. "Commander, wait, I don't think you're going to be able to talk her down."

"She's Wash. I know her better than anyone. I can talk to her." He sounds confident, but there's an undercurrent of doubt there, too. Probably because he sees her blank expression as well, and though Wash has always been somewhat renowned for her ability to be stoic and hide her emotions, this is more than that.

This is…

And suddenly, with almost cold certainty, Nathaniel Taylor knows exactly what this is. And he knows exactly what happened to the missing Level One stims.

* * *

><p><em><em>Somalia<em>. 2137._

_It's her scream of shocked surprise that gets his attention. He's up above, firing off rounds, listening to the sounds of chaos around him when one voice – hers – cuts through all of that. There's a crash of metal and then the sound of flesh being hit – like someone throwing a punch – and then another muffled cry._

_He asks the soldier next to him what the hell is going on down below, and gets a shrugged reply because the kid really just doesn't care. All he cares about is not taking a bullet between the eyes. Hard to blame him for that._

_Slowly, seeing an opening, Nathaniel steps back, crawls down below to where the fallback position is, where they've been pulling their wounded back to._

_And that's when he sees the new kid to the unit – Corporal Andrew Hayward – leaning over his medic, the kids' entirely too strong hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing the air and life out of Wash's body. _

_Not that she's not fighting like hell. She's punching, hitting and clawing, but Hayward – who had just minutes earlier taken two shots to the chest – is suddenly almost absurdly strong, and she's simply no match for him. There's blood dripping down his jaw from a long claw mark, but he just doesn't seem to notice – or even care for that matter._

"_Corporal, back down!" Nathaniel cries out as he grabs the kid by the shoulders and rips him away from Wash. He catches a brief view of his medic as she scrambles away, gasping for air. He can see dark finger shaped bruises already forming around her throat. Blood pours from what looks like a broken nose, painting her dry lips a bright red. Angry and maybe a little bit scared, she wipes at it, smearing the liquid across her knuckles. _

_Hayward tries to throw a punch at Taylor, continuing to try to fight back, but strangely, he doesn't say a word. There's an odd look in his eyes – or perhaps it's the absence of a look. He just seems completely blank, emotionless. _

_And fucking strong._

_After several attempts, his fist finally collides with Taylor's jaw, and for a moment, Nathaniel is pretty damn sure he actually sees stars. He blinks, clears his vision, then grabs Hayward by the collar and tries to shake him, yelling at the boy._

_The kid doesn't react in the least bit. Like he's lost his damned mind._

_He just keeps struggling and fighting, and acting like he's trying to kill his CO._

_And considering his strength, he might have even had a chance of it had it not been for Wash quickly recovering her bearings, grabbing a tranquilizer, and slamming it into the corporal's neck. She quickly follows it up with a second, which seems to do the trick. The kid lets out a gurgled gasp, then collapses to the ground, blood streaming from his now shredded open bullet wounds._

_He dies five minutes later despite Wash's desperate attempts to save him. She's pretty damn sure that had he not gone on his rampage, and thus dramatically delayed urgently needed medical care, she could have saved him._

_It's as she's covering him up when her hand bumps against the pocket of his blood-soaked jacket. She feels the press of a syringe there, reaches in and removes three small yellow-topped needles and two blue ones._

_Level One stimulants. _

_It explains everything._

_It's the last time Taylor ever allows anyone in his unit to touch them. He makes it clear that should it be discovered that anyone is using them, they'll be reassigned – or worse, brought up on insubordination charges – immediately._

_He never forgets the empty look he'd seen in Haywards' eyes when the young soldier had attacked – like there'd been nothing left of the man there. Like it had all been raw primal instinct._

_Kill or be killed._

* * *

><p>In spite of this bitter realization, Nathaniel Taylor still stands up to face his oldest friend. He knows this woman, has been with her and at her side (he thinks it's ironic that most people see it the other way around – that she's always been at his side) almost longer than he was with Ayani. He's been through far more with her than he's been through with anyone else. He has to believe – even though he knows it's a naïve and over romanticized thought – that some part of her will recognize him even through the dark haze of the stimulants.<p>

What he doesn't know, however, is that she has four different flavors running through her blood. And he doesn't know just how badly she's hurt, how she's practically being kept together and on her feet by these scientific abominations.

Even if he had known, though, he still would have stood up.

He glances around, sees Reynolds and Reilly and Dunham all watching, their eyes narrowed, their guns ready. He doesn't think they'll shoot the lieutenant (he knows that each of them is desperately praying that they won't have to), but he knows that they'll do what they need to in order to protect him.

And maybe when it's all said and done, that does mean shooting Wash.

Dear God, please don't let it come that, he thinks to himself.

He waits until her gun is out of bullets, and her hand is moving to reload it, the motion automatic and thoughtless. It's a brief opening, and he takes it, slowly moving to his feet, his pistol held out in front of him. Steady, calm.

Lies. All lies. There's no part of him that's calm right now. Not while he's staring back at her, wondering what just what the hell Lucas has done to her.

"Hello, Dad," Lucas smirks once Taylor moves up and into his eye line. "I know you weren't expecting to see me today, but what kind of son would I be if I didn't drop by to say happy birthday to my Old Man on his sixtieth?" He gestures towards Wash, who is finishing up her reload. "And look, I brought a gift."

As if on cue, Wash starts firing again, spraying bullets around the gathering area (she doesn't seem to hear several people including Taylor and Jim shouting for her to stop). Most of her shots bury themselves in hard surfaces such as walls or supports. A few float harmlessly through the air, connecting with nothing at all. None, thankfully, find flesh. But then that's not really the point right now is it?

No, this is about terror and revenge. This is about destroying that which means the most to him, and doing it in a way that will leave the most scars behind.

Once she runs out of bullets again, Taylor stands back up, and tries again. "Why are you doing this?" he demands of his son, his eyes sweeping over Wash. This close to her, he's finally able to do a basic sight assessment of her, and what he sees can best be summed up with one word: terrible.

"Because I can. And you have to admit, Dad, it's kind of fun seeing her like this."

Taylor chooses to ignore that, turning his attention to his lieutenant instead. He tries to meet her eyes, finds that it's almost impossible to do so. So instead, using his most direct tone (the one he'd used on her when she'd been new to his unit years ago), he says, "Wash, I need you to look at me. I need you to see me."

If she hears him, she shows no indication of such, instead once again reloading.

Lucas taps her arm. "Hold," he says, and strangely, she does exactly that, lowering her weapon and instead moving into a stiff at attention pose, her eyes locked on a target only she seems able to see. "She only obeys me, Dad" Lucas tells him, tightening his hold on her. "She does what I tell her to do." He touches the side of her head. "Your Lieutenant Washington isn't in there anymore."

"She's in there," Taylor replies softly. "If she's on her feet, she's there."

"Don't be a fool, Old Man. She's not standing up on her own." He holds up one of the syringes, this one with a red cap. "She's up because of those. You know what these are, don't you, Commander, Sir?"

"I know what they are, and I know that she's still in there. I know." He spares a brief glance around, takes in the set and determined gazes of his soldiers, their looks asking him silently what he wants them to do.

And just as silently, he tells them to do nothing. Not yet anyway.

Lucas laughs, the tone derisive and cruel. "No, what she is right now, Dad, is a brainless mindless killer. All courtesy of the military that you gave our lives to."

"Lucas…"

The angry young man doesn't seem to hear him anymore than Wash did. "If I tell her to shoot you, that's what she's going to do. And from this distance, she's not going to miss. There's no one else to save you. I tell her to fire, you're dead."

"She won't kill me."

Lucas snorts angrily. "She doesn't know who you are. She doesn't even know I am except that I'm her Master. I'm the one giving the orders."

"She has no Master."

"No Master except you, you mean. You've been controlling her for years."

Taylor isn't fooled; he knows damn well that Lucas could give a damn about who or what controls Wash. This is about power, and humiliation. Much of the colony is gathered around watching this scene go down. They're all seeing Wash standing next to Lucas, being controlled as though she's a simple puppet.

No matter what happens here, Lucas probably figures that a few reputations will be utterly destroyed thanks to all of this.

"What do you want, Lucas? You want me for her? Is that it? You want a trade?"

"It's a thought. Would you give yourself up for her?"

"In a minute."

"Of course you would because you're Commander Nathaniel Fucking Taylor and dying would be easier than having to live with your sins, right?"

"I've lived with my sins, son. All of them. And whether you want to believe it or not, I'd have done anything and everything in the world to save your mother if I could have. But I couldn't. There was nothing I could do. Nothing."

"More lies. You had a choice. You made the wrong one."

"Maybe I did, Lucas, but it was the only choice I could have made, and even now, even with you like this, I'm not sorry I made it. I'll never be sorry I made the choice I did. Now, you have got to stop this. You have to let her go."

"Like you let go of mom? By just wiping your hands of her and moving on to this?" He tightens his hold around Wash's arm, his fingers digging harshly into her skin, surely leaving behind ugly bruises. "How can you not see how inferior she is? How can you just move on and be with her after being with my mother?"

He's ranting now, very much seeming like exactly what he is – a young boy trapped in a man's body, a child who has never allowed himself to grow up and take on adult emotions and feelings. His rage is youthful and immature, and that in and of itself makes it that much more frightening and devastating.

"I loved your mother dearly, Lucas. I love Wash, too. Neither one disgraces the other." He speaks his words calmly, softly, trying to ignore the fact that the relationship that he and Wash have always gone to great lengths to hide and keep to themselves has now been revealed to everyone.

Then again, that the secret matters at all is something of an amazement. Just ten minutes earlier, he'd been still mourning her loss, still grieving her absence. And now she's standing just a few feet in front of him – completely lost and utterly unaware - but still there. Still breathing. Still living.

He means to get her back whatever the cost.

Taylor takes a step towards his son. "Let her go, Lucas. You can have me if that's what you want. If this is about revenge, then take it. But kill me yourself, and let her go. She doesn't deserve this, and we both know it."

"Yes, she does," he says softly. "Tell me something, Dad, do you trust her?"

"Yes," Nathaniel answers immediately.

"With your life."

"Yes."

"Do you trust her with mine?"

The question throws him for a minute, and he pauses, not able to reply. That hesitation is enough to make Lucas smile.

"No, you don't. And for once, Dad, you're right." Then, before Taylor can react or even begin to realize what's about to occur, Lucas reaches out, grabs Wash's face, turns her towards him, and says in an almost emotionless voice, "Kill me."

* * *

><p><em>2135. Somalia.<br>_

_Her first kill comes about two months after she joins the unit. Prior to the reassignment, she'd been a scout and a medic, and never really seen need to draw her weapon and kill. She'd been glad of that, too, knowing even then that blood on her hands was not something to wish for._

_On the day in question, it figures that he's the reason for her to get her first kill. _

_He being, of course, Nathaniel Taylor._

_Only eight weeks into serving with the man, and she's already come to realize that he's a walking disaster zone. He's also the bravest and stupidest man she's ever met. He walks willingly into danger without hesitation or thought for himself. _

_His men adore him for it. She, on the other hand, would like to kick his ass for all the blood he's made her clean up already. Worse, she's pretty sure he knows that he's irritating the hell out of her, and finds it rather amusing. _

_Each time he ends up in front of her, blood streaming down him, his complexion pale and waxy, he starts the conversation with, "Heya, Wash. Looks like I'm going to need a Band-Aid for this scratch." He has to be aware that he's almost gotten popped for that a time or two. _

_The only thing that keeps him from it on this day is the fact that the wound on his side is so damned long and bloody. It's not deep, thankfully, but it's going to take a ton of stitches to close up. More than fifty, she guesses off the top of her head._

_They hunker back behind a row of trees, and she leans forward, biting her tongue as she sets to work. She hears him groan a time or two, and it's enough to tell her that this wound is hurting him like crazy. Still, she focuses._

_Time passes, flows away from her as her hands work. As the needle glides. The stitches mount up, swelling well past fifty, into the sixties._

_It's right as she's finishing with stitch number sixty-seven when she hears the click of a pistol. She sees Taylor's eyes widen as he tries to pull himself up to help her, but they both instinctively know that he's not going to be able to draw his gun before the son of a bitch behind her (how'd he sneak up on them, she wonders, then realizes that his presence likely means that the men guarding them have been taken down) is able to pull his own trigger._

_She meets Taylor's eyes, smiles at him, then reaches forward, grabs a knife that's lying just to the side of her med kit, spins around and slams it into the gut of the surprised enemy soldier. Apparently, he'd figured that as a medic, she wouldn't put up any kind of fight – wouldn't be capable of it._

_Boy is he wrong. Which he realizes as he's lying on the ground, bleeding out._

_For a moment, Wash looks like she's going to go to him, try to help him. It's almost instinctual. She doesn't know how to just let someone die._

_But then Nathaniel grabs her hand. "He's gone," her Commanding Officer tells her softly. "There's nothing you can do." He squeezes her hand, takes the knife from her, sets it down. He puts a hand on her shoulder. "You did what you had to do. You saved us both."_

_She simply nods her head. _

_It's the first time she takes a life instead of saving her._

_She never forgets it._

* * *

><p>For a ridiculously long moment, no one moves an inch.<p>

The only thing anyone hears is the sound of an abnormally panicked Commander Nathaniel Taylor screaming out, "Wash, no!" And then there's the harsh echo of a bullet being fired followed by the thump of a body falling.

And then silence as what's just occurred hits everyone at the same time.

Lucas is dead.

By Alicia Washington's hand.

After a long moment has passed, she suddenly turns and starts firing again, indiscriminately, without specific aim or purpose.

It's Mark Reynolds who recovers first, his soldiers' brain snapping into action, remembering a lesson learned long ago, taught to him by his CO.

* * *

><p><em>2146. Terra Nova.<br>_

_She paces back and forth in front of her men, stopping every now and again to study their faces, to look them in the eyes, and try to gauge their thoughts._

_Pearson up front is wondering why a woman is in charge._

_McCormick in the back is thinking there's no fucking way he can do this._

_And Reynolds, who is standing third from the left in the second row? He's just praying he doesn't make an ass of himself._

"_All right," she says, her tone calm and fool, "Who wants to go first?"_

_There's a pause, and then Pearson says, "I'll do it."_

_She nods. "Good. On the mat."_

_The kid moves to the middle of it, a small smile playing on his lips as he squares off against his female CO. A few minutes later, when he's down on his back, and she's pressing one her knees into his chest, she says, "I figured you for a bit more sexist than that, Pearson. Thought you'd at least try to hit me in the face."_

_He blushes a bit at that. It's true; he'd gotten on the mat, and tried to bring her down with body shots and sweeps. She's a woman after all, and though he's not thrilled with being ordered around by one, he's not about to coldcock one, either._

_She lets him up. Shakes her head. "When I'm on that mat with you, I'm not a woman. I'm not even your CO. I'm your enemy, and your job is to take me out however you have to. Whatever it takes."_

_There's an uncomfortable buzz amongst the soldiers – all men in this class (there's been very few female soldiers coming through, something Wash means to discuss with the Commander sooner as opposed to later). She knows what they're thinking, knows that each of these men have bee recruited because they are good people, kids who aren't prone to acts of unnecessary violence._

_It's her job to show them when the right time and place for violence is._

"_Reynolds," she calls out. "How about you? You think you can take me down?"_

"_Yes, ma'am," he says, then steps up. He's not one bit sure about his answer, but the need to prove himself is running through his blood like lava._

_They circle each other on the mat for several moments, she studying his moves, he looking for an opening. She's calm and patient, waiting for him to make a mistake that she can capitalize on._

_She's not expecting what he does next – should have been, but isn't. The moment she draws close, dancing on the balls of her feet, he pulls back and throws a punch, striking her hard across the face. She staggers backwards, her bloodied lips pulling upwards into an almost feral grin._

"_Well done, Reynolds," she growls. "Now let's play."_

* * *

><p>Reynolds rises from his crouch, changes the setting on his gun to bullets instead of sonics (if he fires a sonic blast, he'll take out Taylor, and anyone else close), and then shoots. The bullet slams into her knee, dropping her immediately.<p>

That's all it takes for Taylor to be atop her, wrestling the gun from her. He finally gets it, and tosses it to Reilly, who has come up on his side.

"Wash, I need you to calm down," he orders, knowing damn well that she's still not hearing him or even seeing him despite his proximity to her. Her eyes are completely vacant, absent of anything resembling awareness or sensibility.

Or the ability to choose and make decisions.

Which is why his son is lying a few feet away, dead by her hand.

"Wash!" he yells again as one of her hands collides with her jaw. He dare not strike her back – from where he is now, just inches away from her, he can see the dark bruises around her temples, knows that she's likely suffering from a massive head injury and another blow could be fatal.

Instead, he tries to subdue her. She's bleeding heavily from her knee, and he knows that beneath all the drugs, she's got to be in terrible pain. He just needs to find a way to slow her down, get her to stop thrashing.

Get her help.

That's where Elizabeth Shannon comes in.

He feels rather than sees the doctor bend down next to him, a tranquilizer hypo in her hand. It's such a familiar sight watching Elizabeth sedate Wash just as she had done to Hayward so many years ago.

Only Hayward had died from his injuries Taylor remembers bitterly.

He shakes his head. No. That's not going to happen here.

After just a few seconds, he feels Wash suddenly still, her body going slack, all the fight leaving her. "She's out," Elizabeth whispers, one of her hands touching the lieutenants' face. She then turns and starts calling for her medical team, demanding a stretcher be brought out. To Taylor she says, "It's over."

All he can do is nod, his heart, mind and body now completely numb as his eyes sweep over and settle on the body of his son.

**TBC…**


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: More transition, more flashbacks, thanks for the kind words and onwards.**_

* * *

><p><em>2138. SomaliaSummer._

_There's blood on his hands. Her blood. _

_A sign of life, he thinks almost desperately. _

_Or maybe, it's a sign of impending unavoidable certain death, the more rational and often realistic (fatalistic, she'd correct with a wry entirely too amused smile) part of him insists. _

_Right now, he just doesn't know which part is right._

_He looks up, watching as the med-evac helicopter noisily lifts up into the dark smoky sky. In the distance, he can see and hear the flashes of multiple blasts and explosions. Despite what's just occurred, the losses that his unit has just endured (far more than just hers, though he'd be lying if he tried to claim that each man or woman who has fallen hurts in the same way), the war goes on._

_In just a few short hours, he'll be ordered to report back to Command, and after a fast mission debriefing, new orders will be issued. Sure, he'll be offered quick and cursory sympathies for his lost men and women – both those dead and badly wounded – and then everyone will, almost within the same sentence, move on._

_He's been here before, seen all of this happen more than a dozen times. That doesn't make it easier. It never gets easier to lose the kids that he's trained. It's even harder to let go of the rare ones that he's come to call "friend."_

_He takes a deep shaky breath. Reminds himself that even though she's a medic by trade, Wash has every bit the heart of a warrior. She'll fight like hell to survive. _

_Still, that damned voice reminds him, it's not easy to survive three bullets center mass. She'd been bleeding out quickly, clinging to life with the tips of her fingers._

_Clinging. That's the important thing, Nathaniel Taylor insists._

_He looks at her blood, which is both literally and figuratively on his hands. He smears a bit of it between his fingers, marveling at the brightness of it. _

_It's red. _

_So damned red._

_He sighs, thinks back a few years. Based on her personnel records and background makeup and a bizarre gut feeling that to this day he can't even begin to explain, he'd pulled a young twenty-two year old feisty kid out of an existence that likely would have been safe. Relatively speaking anyway. He'd turned a medic into a soldier, made a fighter out of a healer. Against his better judgment, he feels the sting of regret in his heart even as he acknowledges the wisdom of his choices in his mind. _

_And the he looks back up into the sky and watches until the helicopter is gone._

_Until she's gone._

_He says a silent prayer for her – something he rarely does out of fear that a lack of response will confirm for him once and for all that there's no one up there listening or giving a damn – and then he turns and heads back towards the tents._

_As he's doing so, he makes a decision. As always, the new orders will come in – the war must go on – but first, it's time to go home._

_After everything he's seen today, after everything he's lost (and still will lose), he desperately needs to see them._

_Ayani and Lucas._

_He needs to know that they're safe. _

_Safe and alive._

_Right now, he needs that knowledge like he needs water and air._

* * *

><p>He forces himself to remember his place, to remember his duty. While his badly wounded (but alive) second in command (what a unworthy thing to call her – it hardly even begins to describe all that she is to him) is being carried off to the Infirmary on a stretcher (her wrists locked down in case she comes to and resumes her mindless rampage), he remains out with the other soldiers. His mind is on her, of course, but he tries to pretend otherwise. He barks out orders, provides smooth directives, and generally acts like he's in complete control.<p>

He's not, though.

Right now, Commander Nathaniel Taylor's mind is a swirling mess of confusion, delirium, euphoria, anger, hurt and pain.

What he knows…well, it isn't much at all.

He knows that the woman he'd believed dead – only the second woman in his life that he has ever truly loved - isn't. At least not yet.

He knows that the son he'd believed alive (though wounded) is now dead. By the aforementioned woman's hand.

Beyond that, everything else is a rather frightening tumble for him.

Still, he pretends otherwise because that's what his people need from him.

"Commander," he hears. He turns and looks into the worried eyes of Mark Reynolds, the young man who'd alone had the presence of mind to take down Lieutenant Washington after she'd started (once again) firing into a crowd of civilians. Despite his friendship with Wash, Reynolds had shot her in the knee, stopping her would-be bloodbath before anyone else had gotten hurt.

"Reynolds," Taylor rumbles. "Are we secured?"

"Completely, sir. All civilians have been accounted for. Anyone who was injured has been relocated to the Infirmary, but it looks like we got lucky." Seeing Taylor's expression morph into a frown, Reynolds adds, "Relatively speaking."

"Agreed. All right, Reynolds, let's double up on sentries for at least the next twenty-four hours. We'll reassess then and decide if we need to continue the amped up patrols. I think it's likely that Lucas was acting completely alone, but just in case he wasn't and this was some ploy by the bastards with the Phoenix Group, I want us on high alert. You and Reilly are on point. I want reports every hour on the hour. Understood?"

Reynolds nods his understanding, moves a half step in the direction of Reilly, who is over by a group of soldiers, then stops and turns make, his own expression changing into one of worry. It's easily readable. "Sir…"

"I haven't heard anything yet," Taylor tells him, moving over to Reynolds. He clamps a hand down on the younger mans' shoulder, and gives it a good hard squeeze, meant to reassure Reynolds, tell him that he did the right thing. "But she's tough as nails. That she's alive at all right now is a testament to that."

Damned if those words don't feel so familiar, he thinks to himself.

"Yes, Sir." And then he heads off in Reilly's direction. Taylor watches for a moment, then turns and starts towards the Infirmary.

There, he knows, he'll find the two people in the world that mean the most to him.

One dead.

The other one who might be dying.

Once again, he prays.

* * *

><p><em>2138. ChicagoWinter._

_He hates waiting. It's not something that Chicago Police Officer Jim Shannon has ever done well. He's pretty sure he'll never excel at it. _

_Especially when he's waiting to find out if his partner is dead._

_He rubs his hands over his stubble-covered face. It's been at least three days since he's had a chance to shave, three long days that he'd spent out on a stakeout with his partner, twenty-four year old Dominic Getty._

_All of that had ended in a hail of bullets less than an hour ago._

_They'd been tracking the leader of a gang responsible for trafficking military grade stimulants into Chicago. Bad news these things, they could turn a completely docile kid into a cold-blooded maniac. _

_Almost within minutes._

_And so for three days, he and Getty had waited on their guy, staking out the apartment of his girlfriend, waiting for him to show up. Just as they'd been about to give up, Howard Lee had shown up, hands in pockets, and seeming like just an ordinary guy looking to hook up with his lady for the night. They'd make the mistake of assuming him to be completely unsuspecting, unprepared._

_A dumb stupid idiotic decision made by two young narcotics cops trying to make a big bust however possible ._

_Mostly because most ordinary guys who are unsuspecting and unprepared to be accosted by cops don't usually carry banned weapons – three of them, at least – under their jackets. When he and Getty had approached, both of them pulling their badges, their own sonic pistols out, Lee had pulled two guns and started firing at them wildly._

_It had all happened so quickly. Bullets – typically only used by soldiers over in the warzone (he's heard stories about the brutality of the weapons in Somalia) and pack-attackers – were flying everywhere. Jim had felt one enter his arm, another his side. He had noticed neither. All he had been aware of had been the sound of his partners' body hitting the wet pollution smeared surface of the cracked street._

_He'd dropped down next to Getty, covered him. For a moment, he'd been sure that Lee had planned to finish the job, kill them both. It'd have been so easy, too._

_But then suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a car had backfired loudly, startling Lee. He looked around wildly, as if expecting other cops, then made his decision to flee. With one look back at the two fallen cops, he had turned and raced away. Gotten in his car and driven off, headed back to God only knows where. Probably to move his drugs as quickly as possible._

_Jim hadn't cared._

_He'd called in the incident, pleaded for urgent medical assistance._

_And now he's here._

_Waiting._

_Waiting._

_Waiting._

_He's sitting on a cot, shirt off, side and arm bandaged. There are painkillers flowing into him, but he's completely aware, still driven by adrenaline and fear. _

_The curtain pushes open, and the she enters. _"_Liz," he says, standing up, hoping desperately that he's wrong. "Well?"_

* * *

><p>She makes her way over to him, over to the bio-bed that he's reluctantly still on, offering him a small smile as she approaches. "Jim," she soothes as she sees her anxious and agitated husband. "Calm down. Please."<p>

"I am calm," he insists, gesturing with his bandaged arm, and then immediately wincing in pain. His shirt is still off, and there's tape around the upper part of his arm. The bullet has been removed, and the wound cleaned, but he's still bleeding just a bit, red staining the white of the gauze.

This scene is as familiar to her as it is to him. Thankfully, her news is far different this time. "We've stabilized her," she tells him, stepping over to him, and placing a hand over his uninjured arm. She gives it a squeeze.

"What does that mean, Liz?"

"It means that for the moment, she's all right, but Jim, I need you to understand, she's been through a lot. I won't lie to you; she's in very bad shape, and we're going to have to wait and see just how severe the brain damage is."

"Well, Doc, what do you think?" Taylor asks from behind her. "How bad is it?"

* * *

><p><em>2138. ChicagoSpring._

_She's twenty-six years old and it's her first day as an intern in the ER of this crazy busy hospital. Two hours into her shift, and she's pretty sure that she's already witnessed more blood, loss, pain and death than she's ever seen before._

_Being here, seeing everything, well it's a little bit of hell, and she's wondering just what she's gotten herself into. They don't tell you in medical school just how bad things can get. Just how painful it can all be._

_As Elizabeth Shannon moves rapidly from room to room, she tries to find something positive to think about for just a moment – a place of mental refuge. Almost on cue, her mind settles on the image of her husband and her two children. Jim – a young cop on the Chicago force – is home tonight with seven-year-old Josh and five-year-old Maddy._

_Which means that when she gets home, there's likely to be chaos and destruction everywhere. Jim is amazing at many things, but taking care of two mischievous children is not one of them._

_For reasons she could never explain to anyone, this thought brings a smile to her face. The idea of a rather harried Jim trying to keep order around the small apartment is almost hysterical simply because he's way out of his league with Josh and Maddy. They love and adore their daddy, but they also know that he doesn't have a clue what he's doing with them or what he should be doing._

_And boy do they take advantage of that._

"_Doctor Shannon," she hears a nurse call out. "Pack-attack vic in three."_

_Elizabeth nods grimly, make her way down the hall, into the number three operating room. The patient there is a beautiful young woman in her twenties. _

_Unfortunately, she's been badly hurt, and is hanging on to life by a thread._

_The victim of a fairly brutal pack-attack (in 2138, it's disturbingly common for small gangs of young punks to roam all of the big cities murdering and maiming for pleasure and profit. And unfortunately, despite their best efforts, there seems to be little that the various law enforcement agencies can do about it), her wounds are severe. She's been riddled with bullet and knife wounds._

_She's dying fast._

_Still, Elizabeth fights for her, desperately tries to save her life._

_She refuses to give up._

* * *

><p>The way both of the men are looking at her, like she's holding their hearts in her hand, it's damn near to heartbreaking. They both love Wash – in their own ways, of course – and neither can handle more bad news.<p>

Problem is, she doesn't really have much news at all to offer. Good or bed.

"I think that her odds of a recovery improved the moment she was returned to my care," Elizabeth hedges. It's a half-answer, but the only one she feels completely comfortable providing.

"Sounds like bullshit to me, Doc," Taylor drawls, his keen blue eyes staring right into her warm brown ones. It takes everything she has not to shift beneath his gaze. She's pretty sure he knows that, too, because in spite of everything, she thinks she sees the slightest bit of a smile appear on his lips.

"He's right, Liz," Jim says. "I know a line when I hear one. What's her condition?"

"Serious, but stable," Elizabeth replies immediately. "As you both know, she suffered a severe brain injury thanks to…thanks to being shot." She'd been about to say "thanks to Lucas shooting her" but changes course at the last moment.

Lucas is dead now. By Wash's hand.

That's a bloody wound for later.

"So you've confirmed damage?" Taylor asks.

"Yes, but we won't be able to tell what – if anything - was affected until she wakes up. Neurology is still – for all of its advances – an inexact science. What I can tell you is that her brain is still functioning. We've been able to address the swelling and bleeding, and I'm quite optimistic that she will wake up."

"Eventually," Jim adds dully.

"Right. Eventually. When? Well, I really have no idea. Could be hours. Could be days. Could be...a lot longer. But I do think she'll come to. As for the knee injury she sustained today, the shot was clean. After some healing time and some therapy, she should regain full motion and use of the knee without any problem."

"Okay, then what about the stims that he put in her?" Taylor presses.

Elizabeth sighs at that.

"I know that sound," Jim says, standing up. He doesn't get far before Elizabeth plants a hand into the middle of his chest and pushes him back down.

"Stay," she says, her eyes sparking dangerously. He waves a hand of surrender at her, and drops back. If this interaction amuses or annoys Taylor, he shows no sign of it, just waits for Elizabeth to answer his previous question.

"Doc?" he finally prompts after a few moments of waiting on Jim and Elizabeth to stop glaring at each other. He gets it – they're both on edge, both a little scared.

Well guess what, so is he.

And he doesn't like it one bit.

"Sorry," Elizabeth says, turning back to face him. "Based on the chem scan we took when we brought the lieutenant in, she's been taking – or rather has been being given – the stims for almost two weeks. Pretty much around the clock."

"Which, if I recall the literature, can lead to dramatic chemical alterations in the brain," Taylor notes grimly. "Sometimes permanent ones."

"Right. On top of everything else," Elizabeth admits with a nod. "I probably don't need to tell you this, but it's going to be a long recovery for Alicia."

"But she is going to recover?" Jim asks. "Right?"

"Yes," Elizabeth tells them. "I believe she will recover."

Jim lets out a caught breath, gives his wife a heartbreaking look that tells her what he'd been thinking about. A time when her answer had been far different.

* * *

><p><em>2138. ChicagoWinter._

_He knows what she's going to say immediately. Maybe it's the look she's giving him, sympathetic and sad. Or maybe it's the moisture he's certain that he sees in her normally bright warm eyes. She reaches for him, but he spins away._

"_No," he says. "No."_

"_We did everything we could. We tried…I tried everything I could, but Dominic's injuries were too severe. I'm sorry, Jim, I'm so sorry." _

_She's been working in this hospital for going on eight months now, and has learned quickly that this moment never gets easier. It's even harder when you know the man who died. When he was your husbands' partner, and someone you considered a friend. When you can't stop wondering if maybe you could have done more even if you know deep down that no, you couldn't have._

"_No…I…I should have…I should have stopped this…" Jim insists._

"_Jim, look at me. Look at me. You did everything you could. We both did." She steps towards him and wraps her arms around his chest. "You almost died," she whispers into his neck, pressing her lips to his warm flesh. "You almost left me."_

"_I'd never leave you," he assures her, holding her to him. The contact hurts the wound on his side terribly, but it's a small price to pay to have her so close. "Never."  
><em>

* * *

><p>Despite orders to go home and rest from Elizabeth, Nathaniel finds himself sitting next to her bed (she's been moved to one of the private rooms, away from prying and curious eyes). He looks down at her badly bruised face, runs a finger across lacerated skin, and wonders just how the hell they'd gotten to this place.<p>

No, their lives have never been easy, but both of them have always been strong believers in the idea that they and they alone are the deciders of their destiny.

He's always thought that if you allow another person or entity to control your actions or decisions – if you give them that power – then you surrender your soul as well. You have to own it all, good and the bad.

For years, he's owned what happened in Somalia.

To both Ayani and Wash.

For Wash, it'd been the decision to take a medic and make her learn how to be a warrior. Were it not for him, she wouldn't have nearly died that day. That she also insists on owning what had happened to her on that uncomfortably warm evening is irrelevant to him. Admirable certainly, but irrelevant.

For Ayani, it'd been so much worse. Wash, at least, had had a fighting chance. She'd had weapons on her – guns and knives and her razor sharp wits.

Ayani had been a schoolteacher, who often carried around with her a perfectly kept up Swiss Army knife that he'd given her when they'd first started dating. It'd been a silly gift, but one his own mother who had long passed away had given him. It'd been Nathaniel Taylor's own wacky version of a promise ring.

Not much a knife like that could do against a bunch of monsters that made most pack-attack punks look like schoolyard bullies.

That day had created another monster.

Lucas.

He closes his eyes, tries not to think about the body in the morgue.

Tries not to think about his son.

There are some things, though, you can't ever stop thinking about.

Some things are just so terrible and awful, no matter what you do, not matter what you try, you just can't ever forget them.

* * *

><p><em>2138. ChicagoSpring._

_Her name is Christina Williams, and once she comes to, miraculously alive thanks to the surgeon who had fought for her against all odds, she tells that same doctor – Elizabeth - her story. _

_She speaks of walking home after class, earphones on, loud rock music blaring in her ears. She says that she'd had her mind on silly things like a boy she'd liked and an upcoming shopping trip to the domes with friends._

_She tells Elizabeth that she's never seen the pack-attackers coming. She'd only felt their hands on her. All over her. Hitting, beating, abusing._

_They'd hurt her in every way a man could hurt a woman. And then gone far beyond that. They'd destroyed her soul, and done so with laugher in their voices._

_Her words are horrific, her bitter heartbroken tears are worse._

_She wonders why she's alive. She says she's not even sure if she even wants to be. She asks how she's supposed to recover from this._

_Elizabeth can provide no answers, all she can do is listen. It's a damnable position, but one she finds herself in all too often._

* * *

><p>She's not surprised to find Jim sitting next to the lieutenants' bed, having assumed the position after the Commander had finally relinquished it in order to go check in with Reynolds and Reilly. It occurs to her that Taylor still hasn't yet made his way to the morgue, but she figures after all that has happened today, he can perhaps be permitted a bit of time to let everything sink in.<p>

She slides next to the door, feeling only slightly guilty about eavesdropping. It's not like an actual conversation is occurring within the room. No, it's just Jim…talking to Wash. Rambling really.

Which would absolutely drive the lieutenant nuts if she were conscious.

"I can't believe you shot me, Wash," Jim tells her, pointing towards his wounded arm. "You're going to owe me big time for this one, I figure." He pauses as if expecting an answer from the unconscious lieutenant, then pushes on. "Because you know, it really hurts. I mean really hurts."

"Baby," Elizabeth says as she enters. She'd considered staying out there longer, but the break she'd heart in Jim's voice – subtle, and something she's pretty sure only she would hear – had told her that the last thing he needs right now is time alone. He may not have the same connection to Wash that Taylor does, but the two of them have become extremely good friends.

And beyond that is the guilt over her condition.

She'd voluntarily laid down her life so that they and their family could escape. That's a massive burden to carry – especially for an honorable man like Jim.

And atop of all of that is the memory of another partner lost eleven years earlier.

"Hey, Liz," James says, offering her a hand. "She hears me, right?"

"That's always been the belief." She allows him to pull her over to him, lets him wrap his arms around her.

"So if I ramble enough, she'll wake up and tell me to can it?"

"Entirely possible. You do ramble."

"Hey!"

She smiles in response, gives him a soft kiss on the forehead, allows them to have a quiet moment. It doesn't last long before he says, "Been a hell of a day."

"Yes, it has," she agrees. "For all of us."

"The Commander especially," he notes.

"Good and bad seem to go hand in hand around here," she offers. "As bad as today was, we wouldn't have gotten Wash back without Lucas having done what he did. He could have just shot her again. She wouldn't have survived a second blast. I'm still not sure how she survived the first one to be absolutely honest."

"She's a survivor."

"Mm."

"You doubt that?"

"Course not. I've seen enough miracles doing this job. All I'm saying is, most people don't survive a blast to the face, and even if they do, even with the drugs he was pumping into her, most people wouldn't survive not getting medical assistance for two weeks. This goes beyond being a survivor, Jim. This is…"

"Will to live. Wash doesn't know how to die." There's enormous pride in his tone when he says this, a tremendous amount of faith in the woman who has essentially become his partner. He gazes down at her unconscious form, and even with the deep bruises and cuts all over her, all he sees is the toughest woman he's ever known. A woman he believes won't give in.

"I can accept that," Elizabeth nods.

"Me, too." He rubs his hands over his face, attempting to massage away the exhaustion. "Liz, how do we even begin to pay back what she did for us?"

"I have no idea," Elizabeth admits. "But I promise you, Jim, we'll find a way. I suspect that once she wakes up, she's going to need all of us. At least during the first few weeks. Her memory is likely to be shaky at best, and she's probably going to have difficulty moving around. Especially with the knee injury."

"You're assuming she's going to wake up soon," Jim notes, his tone hopeful.

"No, I just know the lieutenant," Elizabeth replies with a smile that quickly widens into a grin. "She never stays in bed as long as she should. Even when she's running a high temp and is on strict doctors' order to do stay down."

* * *

><p><em>2149. Terra NovaSpring._

_It starts with a bit of a headache. Right behind the eyes, and atop the sinuses. She pops a few aspirin (made from some plant that had been discovered deep in the jungle) and returns to prepping to go OTG with Reynolds and Dunham._

_It's supposed to be a simple overnight outpost check. Number 2 hasn't reported in for almost forty-eight hours. Chances are that everything is fine – communications from that outpost can be spotty, but it's always best to be safe._

"_You about ready?" Taylor asks as he descends the steps with Wash. He notices that she's a bit pale, but thinks it wise not to mention it. She'd been gone from their bed when he'd woken up that morning, already plunging herself head first into getting prepped for the OTG mission. Typical Wash, always on top of things._

"_Yep," she says with a nod. Even that small motion makes her wince more than she cares to, the pressure in her skull intensifying. _

"_Wash?"_

"_Sorry. Headache." She waves her hand dismissively. "I'm fine."_

"_You're sure?"_

"_Yes."_

"_You don't look fine. Have you had yourself checked out by Doctor Shannon?"_

_This earns him a hard glare. "No. Why would I do that?"_

"_Proper procedure," he tells her._

"_Oh, I get it."_

"_You do?"_

"_Uh huh." She reaches out and grabs his arm. He's a bit surprised by the clamminess of her hand. Before he can mention it, though, she's pulled him off to the side, away from prying eyes and ears. "She bitched you out about not taking proper care of yourself, and now you're turning that on me."_

"_Yes," he admits. _

"_Are you afraid of her?"_

_He chuckles. "Oh, yes. Now get your ass over to her, Lieutenant. You don't leave unless she clears you."_

"_You're joking."_

"_Is this my joking face?"_

"_No, that's your 'I'm an ass' face."_

"_I don't have one of those."_

"_Trust me, you do." She's glaring at him when she says this, her words fairly petulant. It's almost comical._

"_Now, Wash. Move it. And believe me, I'll check."_

"_Fine," she grouses. "But don't think I won't remember this."_

"_Oh, I know you will," he grins before leaning in and pressing a soft kiss to her lips. Considering the fact that she might be sick, it's a slightly dangerous thing to do, but on the other hand, he'd spent the entire previous evening in bed with her – if he isn't already sick, a little extra kissing probably isn't going to increase the odds. At least that's how he figures it as he's urging her mouth open._

"_Uh uh," she grunts as she pulls back. "I don't think so, buddy. I have to get to the Infirmary. Per my CO's orders. Sir." And with that, she turns and stalks away, the speed and motion causing the pain in her skull to flare up again. Still, she refuses to let him see it. That would be offering him confirmation of her illness, and as childish as it is, she absolutely won't give him the pleasure of such a victory. _

_By the time she reaches the Infirmary, walking about two hundred yards (such a ridiculously small distance) through the bright mid-morning sun, she's practically pouring sweat, and her stomach is rolling. Still, when she checks herself in, and the nurse asks her symptoms, she cops to only the headache._

_Which Doctor Shannon sees right through._

"_You've got the flu, Alicia," Elizabeth says after a few quick tests. "But I'm guessing, brilliant medic that you are, you already knew that, yes?"_

"_I suspected," Wash admits with a groan. "I'm guessing you don't' have anything to just make it…go away?"_

"_You know better," Elizabeth chuckles. And Wash does – though Dr. Shannon could certainly whip up a quick little shot of something that would wipe the virus out clean, the medical team as a rule far prefers to - if at all possible - have patients allow their illnesses to run their natural courses so as to build up the appropriate antibodies. Which essentially means no quick fixes._

"_Right," the lieutenant mutters as her stomach rolls. For a moment, she's damn sure that she's about to throw up the melons (reddish with a hint of purple, tastes vaguely like honeydew) that she'd consumed for breakfast. _

_Right onto Elizabeth's shoes._

_Which would be fucking spectacular._

"_Well then, now that that's settled, I expect you know what my recommendation are going to be. Bed rest and plenty of fluids. You're just at the beginning of this virus. Within a few hours, you're going to feel like you got hit by a bus."_

"_Sounds great," Wash responds. "But I'm going to have to defer. I've…"_

"_Got plans to go OTG. I know. Not today, Lieutenant. You're benched."_

"_Elizabeth…"_

_The use of her first name makes Elizabeth smile. She knows damn well when she's being manipulated – this particular method, it's one Jim uses with wild – if often unsuccessful – abandon. How alike these two have become in such a short time. Not that she would say this to either of them. If she did, they would certainly both fix her with a glare of disbelief and shock. Maybe even revulsion._

_On second though, perhaps telling them would be worth it just for those looks, she muses. She shakes her head and fixes the lieutenant with a steady uncompromising gaze. "Absolutely not. This colony needs you healthy, Alicia. Not out in the jungle running a high fever. To your quarters. Now."_

"_Yes, ma'am."_

"_I expect the Commander will be taking your place OTG, yes?"_

_Wash grimaces at that. Just the knowledge that Nathaniel will be out there will be enough to keep her from resting properly, and they both know it. "Probably."_

"_Then I'll stop by later to check in on you."_

"_You don't have to."_

"_I actually probably do knowing you."_

_Turns out, she's not wrong. _

_After checking in with a bemused Nathaniel and then reluctantly seeing him off, the lieutenant actually tries to make good on her orders from the Doc. She even returns to her quarters to sleep off the quickly worsening virus, but the nagging worry over the Commander, and the concern about the colony being in the hands of Jim Shannon (she isn't actually worried if she's completely honest – the man may be infuriating, but he's more than competent. She just doesn't like not doing anything) is enough to push her wearily from her bed and onto her couch._

_That's where Elizabeth finds her a few hours later, sitting on her couch with her plexpad on her lap, reading through req forms and after action reports from some of her men who have recently been OTG. She's sweating heavily, and boasting a temp well over one hundred, but damned if the lieutenant isn't putting in a full day of work – doctors' orders or otherwise._

"_You must be joking," Elizabeth admonishes as she enters. She'd briefly considered knocking, but then figured that giving the lieutenant time to hide her activities (she'd been certain of Wash's disobedience in this respect) would be ill advised. And of course, she'd been right._

"_Hey, Doc," Wash greets, offering a smile that's more of a grimace than anything else. She's looking almost green, sweat coating her skin. _

"_Don't 'hey, Doc', me. I get that from Jim. He doesn't get away with it, either. Now unless you want me putting you on medical leave for the next two weeks – and don't for a minute believe I won't do it – you'll drop that plex right now, and get your ass back into bed."_

"_I will. I just…I need to…I need to…"_

"_You're going to throw up, aren't you?"_

"_Ugh."_

"_Come on." She offers her arm, helps the lieutenant to the bathroom, and helps her clean up when it's over. She then escorts her back to her bed. "Rest, all right? The colony is in good hands. We just heart from the Commander and his team. They'll be on their way back in the morning. Everything is fine. Rest."_

"_You could have given me something."_

"_I could have, yes, but I think even you should be allowed to be sick every now and again, Alicia. Even you are allowed to let down from time to time."_

_If Wash has a response to that, Liz never hears it because the lieutenant has fallen into a restless exhausted slumber._

_To that, the doctor permits a small smile, and then moves out to the front room. She plans to work from there, just to ensure the lieutenant does not._

* * *

><p>He finally makes his way down to the morgue late that same evening. It's hard to imagine that so little time has passed since Lucas and Wash had entered Terra Nova. It's almost impossible to realize that it's still technically his sixtieth birthday.<p>

He steps inside the chilly room, makes his way over to the table. This room is capable of holding ten bodies at a time (when it'd been built, there'd been no reason to assume the need for mass holding – it clearly needs to be built out, but hasn't yet been prioritized). Lucas – wearing only a pair of shorts now - is the only corpse in the room, his body cleaned and cold.

"Hello, son," Nathaniel whispers as he approaches the table. His eyes stray down to the marks on his chest – the not very well healed bullet wounds that Skye had put in his chest just a few weeks earlier. Strangely enough, the marks – now bloodless and – look oddly…infected?

He hears footsteps behind him, knows that the person he'd asked to join him in here has arrived. "Doc," he greets. "Thanks for joining me down here."

"Certainly," Elizabeth answers, coming to his side.

"So? Anything in the autopsy explain why…"

"Why he let Alicia kill him?"

He nods at that, a tight frown appearing on his face as he tries to work all of this out in his head, even before she answers the question.

"Yes and no."

"Go on," Taylor instructs as he turns to face the doctor. He notices her grim expression, and immediately knows that he won't like what he's about to hear.

Then again, he hasn't liked much about this day.

One hell of a birthday it's been.

"Your son was sick. The wounds he received from Skye were serious, but treatable. Especially early on. It seems as though he essentially did the equivalent of pasting a Band-Aid over it instead of actually taking care of the wounds. Absent treatment, they got badly infected, and he's been suffering from blood poisoning for a few days now. From the chem test we did on him, he's been running on stims as well – though a much lighter dose than he was giving Wash. I'd guess Level 2s instead one the 1s that he was giving her."

"Why didn't he have her fix him up?"

"She was likely never capable of it. Chances are when she was conscious, she was either drugged and unable to access her medical training or she was coming down and too shaky to be able to properly stitch him up. Or remember how to."

"So what you're saying is…"

"What I'm saying is, Commander, when Lucas decided on his course of action with her, he willingly gave up his opportunity to live. Same as when he brought her back to the Colony. If he had surrendered, I could have reversed the infection and poisoning. I'm fairly certain that I could have saved him."

"But he chose to die instead. He chose revenge instead of life," Nathaniel says bitterly, shaking his head in anger. "Instead of answering for what he'd done, he chose to make me see him like this. He chose to make me watch her kill him."

"Can you forgive her for this?"

He blinks at that. "What are you talking about?"

"Human nature, Commander. She means the world to you. You love her, but whether you want to admit it or not, emotion doesn't always separate well from logic. You know in your head that she wasn't responsible for what she did. Your heart may believe otherwise. We both know hers will."

"Lucas tried to kill her. Not once but twice. He knew damn well what he was doing to her – he knew what those stims would make her into. If any one of our men had shot him, I would have understood. I won't blame her for this."

"I hope you're right because as much as she's going to need help with her memories and her coordination, she's also going to need assistance with her inevitable guilt. She killed your son, Commander. She's not going to let go of that easily even if you can."

"Understood." He looks down at his son, then drops a hand down and gently brushes the circular wound between his eyes. "Don't imagine the autopsy came up with anyone to explain his…" he trails off.

"Hatred?"

Quite involuntarily, Taylor winces at the word, even if it's accurate. "I know. No medical answers for that one. I caused that."

"No. War caused that. Not you."

"I wish it were so simple."

"It never is, sir. I'm going to go ahead and leave you with him now. If you need anything, let me know."

"Thanks, Doc. For everything."

"Certainly." She rests a hand on Taylor's shoulder, squeezes lightly, and then moves off, leaving him lone with Lucas.

Once Elizabeth is gone, Nathaniel turns back to Lucas. "You didn't have to do this, son. I would have forgiven you for anything. Even, God help me, for what you did to her. All I wanted…all I wanted was your forgiveness."

He feels moisture in the corners of his eyes, and roughly pushes it away. There will be time for tears eventually. Maybe later.

Maybe once Wash is back in his arms.

Now, though, now he needs to try to understand.

* * *

><p><em>2138. SomaliaSummer._

_They leave town almost as quickly as they'd come, their laughter rising into the dark sky, the treads of their vehicles mixing the dirt and blood left behind them._

_Now, he has to find her. It takes time to find one corpse amongst the many, but he's persistent. When he does locate her – just outside of town - he's even more horrified. They've dumped her like so much trash, her body badly beaten and bruised, her beautiful face almost unrecognizable. She's naked when he gets to her, dark marks around her skin showing what they've done to her._

_Everything hits him at once, and he falls to his knees, tears streaming down his dirt covered cheeks. In the last twenty-four hours, he's watched half of his unit fall – including Wash – and now this. This…there are no words for this._

_There's just pain._

_And loss._

_And hurt._

_He holds her to him, cradles her body against his, speaks to her, wills her to open her eyes. He even tries commanding her to do so, and then he starts to chuckle because Ayani has never been one to respond to commands._

_Stubborn damn woman._

_What is it, he thinks, about all the women in his life being so stubborn?_

_He kisses her cold skin, tries to warm her with his own feverish flesh. Rubs her hands and tries to press heat into her._

"_It's not going to work, Dad. You can't bring her back just because you want to. She's dead," he hears from behind him. He turns, and to his shock and horror, he sees his fourteen-year-old son standing there. The boy regards him almost coldly, his eyes full of something that looks a whole lot like hatred._

"_Lucas…"_

"_Why?" Lucas demands, approaching him rapidly. "Why?"_

_He shakes his head. How can he possibly answer that question? Doesn't the boy realize what an impossible decision it had been? Doesn't he understand that there had been no outcome that would have been okay?_

"_Lucas," he tries again. He holds out a shaky hand to his son, wills him closer._

_Surprisingly, Lucas allows it. He allows his father to pull him into an embrace, permits the weeping over his mother. _

_And then when it's over, and it's time to lift her up, he stands and moves away from his father. "It should have been me," he says simply._

_Nathaniel says nothing, can't even begin to answer. Doesn't realize that not being able to reply in that moment damns both he and his son forever._

* * *

><p>Three weeks pass slowly. Each day is spent taking care of colony business, and generally ensuring that Terra Nova is returning to her previous flourishing form. It's tedious work, but everyone seems to be jumping at it with admirable enthusiasm. They all want their prior innocence returned to them.<p>

Taylor doesn't have the heart to tell them that something things can never be won back now matter how hard you fight for them.

Each day, he spends at his desk. Each night, he spends beside her bed. He hasn't slept lying down in twenty-one days, and has rebuffed every attempt to make him do so. Elizabeth has tried gently ordering him home, but he's just as gently told her that that's not going to happen.

His place is next to Wash.

Waiting for her to wake.

Waiting for her to come home.

Waiting for a chance to beg her to forgive him for this.

That's the ironic part about it all. Everyone assumes he'll be the one needing to forgive her, but the truth is, in his heart and mind, he has far more to apologize for. Like not taking care of his son far before things had gotten so far out of hand.

Like not having her at his side when he'd left Terra Nova.

He holds her hand, squeezes it tight, talks to her about the days as they pass.

Pleads with her to open her eyes.

And then one day, almost exactly twenty-one days after Lucas had brought her back to Terra Nova, she finally does.

He's sitting next to her, telling her with some amusement about a brawl that had broken out in the bar between a few over the soldiers over who could woo the most girls (the kids had been properly disciplined but even he – in private – allows himself to find some humor in the heat of young male pride) when he sees a subtle movement of her head followed by her eyes blinking open.

She closes them almost immediately, sealing them tightly against the intense light of the room, the sudden explosive pain in her head enormous.

"Wash," he whispers, leaning closer to her. "Wash?"

* * *

><p><em>2138. SomaliaFall._

_He's in the room of the motel, drinking alone again. He's been doing this almost every day and night since that horrible day at the village. Since then, he's been on personal leave. The military wants him back, but he finds that despite the rage that burns hot in his heart, he's lost the will to care about well…anything._

_Lucas is staying with his sister-in-law, which is for the best considering the hatred that he sees in his sons' eyes when he looks at him. He can only hope that that will fade, but he deep down, he doubts that it ever will._

_Which leaves him as this. A once great now broken war hero sitting by himself in a shitty hotel room half-drunk on terrible cheap scotch. By the end of this night, once again, he'll be a whole lot more than half drunk, he thinks to himself bitterly._

_And oddly, horribly, he's just fine with that._

_He's starting on his second bottle when a knock comes at the door. He glares at the offending barrier for a moment, willing the uninvited guest away. It doesn't work much to his annoyance. The person there knocks again, and then says from the other side, in terribly broken English, "Mr. Taylor, sir, you have an urgent call at the front desk." The guy there – the front deskman – has no idea that he's military, doesn't have a clue what he's been through. Wouldn't care anyway._

_Slowly, Taylor pushes himself up. He has absolutely no desire to take the call. It's likely from one of the brass, ordering him back to action. Sure, he's on leave, but they need men and he's still one of the best no matter how broken by loss he is. He wonders idly how they'd found him, but that hardly matters._

_He steps out into the hall, and nods at the deskman who lifts up his eyebrow when he sees him. Taylor knows he looks like hell – he hasn't shaved or showered in days, has barely slept more than a few hours, hasn't managed more than a cup of soup or two. He feels awful, knows he looks it, too._

"_At the desk, sir," the man says, then leads the way. He hands Taylor a small device – the twenty-second century version of a telephone. "I'll give you privacy." _

_Taylor rather doubts that that's true, but nods his thanks. He puts the receiver up to his ear, and rumbles (doing his damnedest to sound sober), "Taylor."_

"_Wash," he hears. The voice sounds choked and weak, but he knows the woman behind it. A woman who had been shot three times just a few weeks ago. A woman everyone had told him was going to eventually die from her wounds._

"_Wash," he repeats, the breath sweeping out of him in a gust._

"_That's what I said, sir. And if you don't mind me saying, you sound like shit."_

"_You're alive."_

"_Clearly, and you're drunk."_

_He chuckles at that. "Clearly. How'd you find me?"_

"_I have my ways, sir. That and believe it or not, a lot of the guys care about you, and have been keeping tabs on you. They're waiting on you."_

"_Waiting on me," he repeats, feeling a pang of white hot guilt._

"_Yeah." There's a brief pause, the sound of shifting (likely her moving her body), a soft grunt of pain, and then, "I heard what happened. I'm so sorry, Nathaniel."_

"_So am I, Wash." It's a strange thing to say, but he lacks the words to truly express the depth of his pain. _

"_But you need to get back into this war."_

"_What?" her words rip him away from his pity party._

"_What they did to you…what they did to the rest of the guys…you have to pay them back for that. They're all hurting, and they're all waiting on you to take the lead and make those sons of bitches pay. Only you can do that, sir. Only you."_

"_Wash, I'm not sure I can." He's somewhat amazed he's saying this to her, even as close as they've become over the last few years. He'd like to blame the alcohol, but the truth is, he's desperately needed someone to talk to for awhile now. More than that, though, he's desperately needed someone to give him a good hard kick in the ass. Even he knows that._

_Apparently, his spitfire combat medic who everyone had given up for dead has decided that she'd be the best one for the job. She's probably right._

"_Yes, you can. You're Nathaniel Fucking Taylor, sir. The biggest badass in the military. The only man I'd ever follow into hell and back without question."_

"_Even now? With you in that bed?"_

"_Even now. Even with me doped up on about a thousand painkillers. Some of them are very good, sir. Very very good."_

"_How bad are you hurt?" he asks with a frown, responding to the slightly loopy sound of her voice. Every now and again, he's certain he can hear an edge of pain in her tone, proof positive of her severe injuries._

"_I'm…I'm okay, but I don't think I'm going to be joining you back there for awhile," she admits. "But I will be back. I'll always be back."_

"_All right, if I do this, Wash, if I go back and I take our boys and we go after those bastards and we make the pay, you have to promise me something. You have to promise me that what you just said is true. You'll always come back to me."_

_His words are sentimental and unbecoming of a commander to his subordinate, but right now, he just doesn't give a damn. After all that has been taken from him, the gift of her return, of her life, it's something he clutches at with both hands._

"_I promise, sir. Now, get your butt up and out of that skanky motel and go kick some ass for me. Go kick some ass for her. It's what we both want."_

"_Yes, ma'am," he replies, allowing himself a smile for the first time in weeks. When he hangs up, he steels himself for battle._

_He readies himself for vengeance._

* * *

><p>He whispers her name again.<p>

She doesn't respond, but then he realizes with an almost explosive feeling in his chest, he doesn't actually need her to reply because he knows damn well what he'd seen. He'd seen her open her eyes, which means that yes, she's awake.

It means she's alive.

It means she's kept her promise and come back to him.

Again.

He starts to laugh.

**TBC…**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Apologies for the delay. This is for anyone who still has interest in seeing this tale completed. It probably has maybe 2-3 chapters left. It will be completed sooner as opposed to later. Thanks for all the kind words in advance.**

**For what it's worth, I admit some fear over the Ayani/Taylor/Wash scene, but at the same time, I kind of enjoyed it. I hope you do as well.**

* * *

><p>This isn't the first time that thirty-six year old Lieutenant Alicia Washington has woken up after an injury that should have killed her but somehow, rather inexplicably, did not.<p>

Many long years earlier, she'd been terribly surprised to wake up after her first brush with death thanks to her near fatal wounding in Somalia. This time, she should probably be even more shocked, and she likely would be if she could manage to string together more than three thoughts at a time.

Instead, the dark haired lieutenant stares up at the beautiful doctor standing above her, thinking that she knows this woman, but unable to come up with a name. Her memories – the scant few that she can pull up anyway - are foggy at best, as if presented to her through a thick pane of opaque glass.

"Lieutenant," the doctor says, a small smile on her lips. "Welcome back." Her voice is warm, inviting, calming.

Wash tries to reply, even opens her mouth to speak, but quickly realizes that the words are refusing to come out. She tries again, but ends up settling for grunting in frustration instead. For some reason or another, that makes the doctor smile.

"Easy, Alicia," Elisabeth Shannon soothes. "You've been through a terrible trauma. It's going to take some time for you to heal."

That's not good enough for the lieutenant. She has no idea what's wrong with her (she tries for a moment to localize the pain she feels, but quickly realizes that it's coming at her from well – everywhere), but what she does knows is that clearly, something terrible has happened to her, something that has landed her on her back in a bed. With a doctor above her wearing The Face.

Even with her memories in the cracked state that they're currently in, Alicia Washington knows The Face quite well. Knows that she's even given it a time or two. She just doesn't know when, where or why.

She makes a lazy motion with her left hand, noticing as she does so that one of her fingers has been splinted. She sees the doctor – Elisabeth, she thinks to herself finally – tilt her head, like she's unsure what the lieutenant is asking for. So she does it again, tries to gesture for a…pen, that's it, that's the word. Pen.

"I think she wants something to write with," a voice from behind the doctor says. She tries to lift herself to see who's speaking, but even the effort is too much, and just about pitches her back into the darkness. Only a desperate grab at the end keeps her from slipping back beneath the murky surface of unconsciousness.

"Oh! Of course! Hold on a moment. Here we go. Try this, Alicia," Elisabeth says as she pushes a Plex into Wash's hands. She presses a key on the touch screen to put it into sandbox mode. Typically, this mode is used for taking notes during a meeting or for kids to doodle. Right now, hopefully it's a doorway into Wash's fractured and wounded psyche.

Almost hesitantly, Wash presses her pointer finger against the screen, for a moment marveling much as a small child would at the dark mark that the impact makes. She lengthens it, watching as a black line forms and extends. It takes her a moment to remember that what she's doing is called drawing.

Something that she used to be good at. A hidden skill, she thinks. Something she'd kept to herself. This knowledge hits her with a kind of thundering certainty, and she doesn't try to brush it away. She knows that even if she can't seem to attach any memories to the knowledge, it's nonetheless, the truth.

"Take a breath, Wash," she hears. She looks up again, and this time she sees the speaker. His name comes to her immediately – Shannon. Jim Shannon. And with his name comes a surge of odd emotion. Joy, relief, annoyance.

Weird.

It's while she's staring at him that she notices the second man in the room. His name also comes to her quickly – Nathaniel. And with that name comes another surge of emotion, this one far different than the one that had been attached to Shannon. There's something _heavy_ in what she feels for this man named Nathaniel. Something intense, though she can't quite figure out exactly what to call it. She opens her mouth to say something, finds that she desperately needs to speak to him, but once again finds that the words refuse to come.

She turns her attention back to the screen, and with significant effort (her hands feel like pieces of weighted down lead, and her brain seems unwilling to provide her the words she needs to ask the many questions she has), she writes on the screen, a sentence that roughly resembles: "Can't speak. What's wrong?"

She sees the concerned looks that go between the threesome standing over her. Both of the men look alarmed, maybe even scared. To her credit, the doctor hides whatever she's feeling much more successfully.

"You suffered a severe head injury, Alicia," Elisabeth tells her, her voice so very calm and measured. "It might take some time for all of your motor functions to start working again as they should."

"Speaking isn't a motor function," Nathaniel protests as he steps closer to his lover. Now that he's just a few feet away from her, Wash allows her eyes to slide over him, practically (though somewhat inexplicably, she thinks to herself) drinking him in. He's strong and muscular, older and grizzled. His appearance – even with the visible fatigue and worry that she sees etched into the deep lines on his handsome face – comforts her.

"Her brain is still sorting everything out, Commander." Elisabeth tells him, adopting a gentle understanding tone. "We need to be patient as the lieutenant adapts to whatever limitations – temporary or permanent – she might have."

Just as she finishes speaking, Shannon laughs, causing both the doctor and Nathaniel to turn towards him, both wearing expressions of annoyance. Neither can possibly imagine what could be so funny about this horrible situation. That is until Jim points at the Plex, and they see the finger drawn words written there.

Nathaniel reads them allowed, smiling widely as he does so, "The lieutenant is right here and the lieutenant doesn't have any limitations."

"There you are, Wash," Shannon grins, relief settling over him. He turns to glance at his wife, and is surprised to see the slight scowl she's wearing. Apparently, she's not nearly as reassured by the lieutenant's show of stubbornness as the men are. "Liz? Am I missing something here?"

"We'll talk about it later, Jim," she replies tersely. Then, her tone softening, she turns back to Wash and says, "Alicia, we need to run a few tests. See what might be working and what might be…lagging a bit behind. Is that all right?"

It takes her a moment, but finally, Wash nods her head, wincing a bit as she does so. She'd like to be indignant about Elisabeth's words, but right now, she lacks the energy to even try to be. She feels pain radiating through her, even through a fog of what she imagines are painkillers. That tells her that what she's been through is fairly serious. That tells her that once again, she should be dead.

But isn't.

Again.

"Very good. Then gentlemen, if you'll leave us?"

Neither man looks all that eager to go. In fact, they seem rather irritated that she's even asking them to leave.

"Jim, Commander," Elisabeth scolds. "Go."

"I want a call the moment she's done," Taylor insists.

"Fine, but she's probably going to be exhausted afterwards, and just want to sleep," the doctor tells him, her eyes going back and forth between the men. From the bed, Wash watches this interaction curiously, her own emotions torn between amusement and irritation – neither which she can quite understand.

This situation, it feels so familiar to her, but she can't exactly lock down why. Instinct tells her that she's been here before, that this isn't the first time she's dealt with worry from these men. And it's likely not the first time that Elisabeth Shannon has kept them – or rather tried to keep them - from seeing her.

She waits until the men have reluctantly exited to ask Elisabeth about these feelings. She writes on the pad, "I've been here before, haven't I? On this bed with the two of them hovering over me?" Her words are slightly misspelled, and it takes her several long seconds to get them out, but they make enough sense for the doctor to understand what she's being asked.

And then with a smile, Elisabeth nods. "Oh, yes, Alicia, you most certainly have."

* * *

><p><em>Terra Nova. Three Months Earlier.<em>

"_Reynolds!" Taylor barks as he barges through the Infirmary, frightening nurses into jumping out of his way. The boy appears immediately, his pale face streaked with dirt and blood. He looks exhausted, but otherwise all right. Well except for the fact that his left arm is clearly broken, held uselessly across his chest._

"_Sir," the young soldier answers, stepping forward to greet his commanding officer, and deliver the report that Taylor is sure to ask for._

_And he does, "What the hell happened out there?"_

"_We were attacked by some kind of…honestly, Sir, I don't know what it was. I don't think Wash did either. It charged us, and the lieutenant, she pushed me out of the way." He shakes his head when he says this, grimacing. "I'm sorry, Sir, I should have protected her better."'_

"_Nonsense," Taylor answers. "She's your CO. It's her job to protect you. And judging by the fact that you're standing up talking to me, that's what she did."_

"_Yes, Sir," Reynolds answers, though it's quite clear that he's not buying into what Taylor's saying. Just the same, he gestures across the room. "She's in with the doctors now. She's pretty torn up. I'm not sure how bad…"_

_Just the fact that Reynolds seems to be coming apart at the seams is enough to calm Taylor down. He knows damn well how hard soldiers take the feeling – warranted or otherwise - of letting down their superior officer. It can be gutting. _

"_Don't worry, son. She'll be just fine," Taylor insists, lowering his voice a bit. "That woman is the too tough to die. Trust me on that."_

"_Yes, sir."_

"_Good. Now that we've established that fact, I'm going to take a page out of her book and threaten to kick your ass if you don't go and get your arm checked out."_

_At that, Reynolds chuckles. When Taylor tilts his head curiously, Reynolds says to him, "Sorry, sir, it's just…that actually does sound like Wash."_

"_Oh believe me, I know. Go on. Over to one of the nurses. Now."_

_Almost reluctantly, Reynolds nods, and then steps away, headed towards a nurse on the other side of the Infirmary. As he's making his way there, he smiles when he sees Maddy enter, her father right beside her._

"_I'm fine," Reynolds says immediately. It doesn't matter, though, because a second later, he's got an arm full of Maddy Shannon. He offers a small sheepish smile to her none too thrilled father. "Mr. Shannon, sir."_

"_You all right, Reynolds?" Jim asks gruffly, acting like he doesn't care. It's a lie, of course, but one that's easier to pull of simply because the boy is currently holding his daughter in his arms._

_Reynolds nods, "Fine, Sir."_

"_Good. And Wash?"_

"_With the doctors."_

"_Okay. You two…try to step away from each other? Okay?" Then, before they can reply (surely in a way he'd prefer they didn't) he turns away and makes his way over to Taylor, who is pacing back and forth, trying to see what's going on with his lieutenant. "Anything, Commander?"_

"_Nothing. Damn it." He starts to move towards the other side of the room, but before he can make it even ten steps, Elisabeth turns out to face him._

"_Commander," she says softly. "Where do you think you're going?"_

"_Nowhere as long as you tell me what I need to know. How is she?"_

"_She's going to be fine. Most of the wounds were more superficial than they looked when Mark brought her in. She has a few deep gashes, but we were able to stitch her up and replace all of the lost fluids. She'll be back up and on her feet within a week. Probably sooner knowing her." _

_Both men let out a breath of relief._

"_I know you both would like to see her, but she can have visitors in the morning. The lieutenant is resting now. Understood?"_

_Taylor actually considers this for a moment, and then shakes his head. "Not acceptable," he replies, then before a stunned Elisabeth can stop him, he pushes past her, on his way towards Wash. A moment later, Jim follows after him._

"_Jim!"_

"_Sorry, Liz," he says with a grin and a shrug. He hears her curse under her breath, which just makes his smile increase. She's right behind them as they push over to the bed that Wash is lying on. She, like Reynolds, is covered in dirt and blood. There are dozens of cuts across her body, the largest a massive now stitched up gash running the length of her side._

"_You're sure she's fine?" Taylor asks as Elisabeth moves between he and Wash. She's wearing a like of annoyance – one that usually tells Jim that he's gone maybe a step or two too far. _

"_Yes. And she's sleeping. Now, please, go home."_

"_I think I'll stay," Taylor replies. _

"_Sir."_

"_I promise I'll stay out of the way."_

"_Fine," Elisabeth grunts. "Just one of you, though."_

"_Go on, Commander," Jim says. "I have a feeling my wife wants to have a word or two with me."_

"_Oh, yes," Elisabeth answers. "Perhaps even more than just one or two."_

"_Be gentle with him, Doc," Taylor chuckles. _

_She shoots him a glare, then turns and walks away, one hand tight around Jim's forearm. The moment they're gone, Taylor sits down in a chair, and scoots it slightly closer to Wash's bed. He considers reaching for her hand, but decides against it. No one knows. And being that she's going to be just fine, she'd lose her damned mind if their secret got outted over something so…small._

_Small to her anyway. _

_Over the years, he's seen Wash hurt at less fifty times. Unconscious? Probably a dozen times. It never gets easier. Even if he believes in her, trusts her strength, it always rips at him to see her injured. Right now is no different._

_And so he does what he always does, the only thing he can do. He sits by her side, and waits. _

_Waits for her to come back to him._

_Waits for her to come home._

* * *

><p>"So?" Taylor demands as he steps into Elisabeth Shannon's office, his military boots scuffing loudly against the floor. She's at her desk, plex in front of her, a massive cup of coffee in hand. She looks up at him and smiles slightly, tiredly, not looking the least bit surprised to see him.<p>

"Good morning, Commander." It's just after oh-seven-hundred, and on a normal day, she'd have at least a few minutes of peace and quiet. Time to herself. Time to get ready for the inevitable craziness of the day ahead.

To assume that she'd get such time this morning had been pure folly, and she'd known it from the moment Jim had woken her up with a smile, a kiss and a quick (though not at all subtle), "Any news come in on Wash overnight?"

She's not one bit surprised by how geeked up the men are. For several weeks before the lieutenant's miraculous reappearance at Taylor's birthday party, Jim and Taylor had been suffering through her supposed death. Elisabeth, too, had felt the guilt and loss of Wash's presumed loss, but certainly not to the degree that her husband and the commander had.

Wash being alive feels like a death row reprieve, a second chance, an opportunity for a redemption that neither is completely sure they deserve.

That no one is quite sure what they've gotten back, well that's another matter entirely, and one that neither man seems all that interested in addressing.

But address it, they must.

What Lucas had done to Wash had been savage and cruel. He'd injected her with drugs that had damaged her body and mind, and turned her essentially into a soulless killer. And kill she had.

Taylor will forgive her (if he hasn't already) simply because deep down, Elisabeth suspects that even the Commander knew how his sons' life would have to end.

Exactly as it had, with bullets, screaming and blood.

It's no great stretch to assume that Wash won't be so generous with herself.

Even previously lacking the knowledge of the lieutenants' intimate relationship with the commander, Elisabeth has always known that Wash has always valued Taylor needs and desires above her own. In this case, she's certain to put the loss of his only son above the justification for it. In short, she'll take all of the guilt, responsibility and blame onto herself.

That is assuming she ever really remembers what had occurred.

Elisabeth finds herself hoping that Wash never does.

Not that that matters; the truth always comes out eventually. Always.

"How was her night?" Taylor asks, arms crossing over his chest.

"Uneventful. She slept most of it."

"Most of it?"

"She woke up around three in the morning with a cramp in her injured leg and a rather severe headache. Both were treated, and she's resting peacefully now."

"I see. What of the tests from yesterday? Are the results back yet?" He'd come back the previous evening with the same question, but Elisabeth had pushed him off, claiming that more time would be needed before answers could be supplied.

She can tell by his determined look that further delays will not be accepted.

She sighs. "Yes."

"And?"

"There was brain damage." There's a cautious edge to her tone, like she's trying to not alarm Taylor with the new knowledge.

"How severe?"

"Hard to say. The brain is tricky."

"Best and worst case scenarios, Doc."

"Best case, she has to relearn to do a few things, but with some physical therapy and time, makes a full recovery. Worst case, her memories never return to her, and she is unable to speak or walk."

He frowns at that. That's not just the worst-case scenario, it's unthinkable. To imagine Wash crippled and untethered to her past? Well, he simply can't. And perhaps that's selfish (there's no perhaps, he knows for a fact that it's selfish – he's lost so much in his life, he can't lose her, too), but his mind simply refuses to allow for the possibility of the worst-case scenario being Wash's future.

"I wish I could give you more definite answers, Commander, but we're just going to have to wait," Elisabeth says gently, standing up to come around to the front of the desk. She moves to stand right in front of him.

"Hurry up and wait," he mutters. "They tell you that in the military. All due respect, it was bullshit then, Doc, and it's bullshit now."

She just smiles at that.

"I want to see her."

"Of course," she nods.

He starts towards the private room where Wash is, his heartbeat increasing in tempo with every step.

"Commander?"

"Hm?"

"One of the tests I did was a…well in simple terms, a recognition one. I showed her pictures of people she should know or asked her if certain names meant anything to her. Things like that. Some were complete blanks to her, but I will say this, she reacted quite strongly to your name. Her heartbeat decreased. In my opinion, your name calmed her down immensely. She knows who you are, Commander. She may not have all of the memories attached to that knowledge, but she knows who you are. Of that, I am certain."

"Thanks, Doc."

He steps past her and enters the room where Wash is soundly sleeping. Even bruised and beaten, she's beautiful to him.

That said, he's starting to get real sick of seeing her lying wounded in a bed.

Too damned many times over the years.

Though, he remembers with a small smile, not all of those times had been tragic or terrifying (certainly not like this time). One or two of them had actually even been fairly amusing once the immediate danger and worry had passed.

* * *

><p><em>2136. Somalia.<em>

_Ayani Taylor is absolutely furious with her (and him, too, he realizes with a degree of chagrin). Actually, that might be an understatement. The small woman with the large scowl covering her normally lovely features is somewhere beyond furious. Only thing is, the soldier lying on the bed – one Corporal Alicia Washington - has no idea of this because she's half unconscious, stripped to the waist, sweating up a storm, and bleeding from a small hole on her hip._

_A goddamned bullet hole._

_The corporal is here on leave, with Nathaniel. Apparently after a fairly nasty skirmish during a rescue op, a three-day holiday had been granted to the entire unit. Nathaniel had convinced Wash to come home with him – after all, better great cooking and a soft bed than a nasty hotel room and too much whiskey. _

_He hadn't bothered to mention the rather unsavory – in his opinion - men that she tends to take up with during these kinds of leaves. They're the kind of empty faces meant to help make the pain and loneliness of war and loss disappear in a flurry of touches and a tangle of sheets. He can't say as he's been there (he's been married since before the war) but he understands the desperation just the same, and knows that he wants better for his medic._

_His protégé._

_His dear friend._

_He wants so much better for her._

_He should have known something was not quite right when his normally hotheaded medic had agreed to his request to come home with him without a fight. Yes, she's quite fond of Ayani – the two women get along wonderfully, his wife taking on the role of almost protective older sister to the younger woman – but Wash is incredibly sensitive to the idea of intruding on the personal time of the married couple. She doesn't want to get between them or be a burden._

_So when she'd simply said, "Sure," he'd been relieved and thankful to avoid the usual fight, but he shouldn't have been. Because his Wash is a stubborn woman, and she never gives in unless he makes it an order or wears her down (both of which he has done countless times, much to her annoyance)._

_Yeah, it'd simply been too easy, and he should have realized it. But he'd been tired, and sore, and assumed his oddly pale medic for the same. She'd been working for almost thirty-six hours straight on wounded soldiers in the field. He'd figured her for just worn to the bone._

_He hadn't figured her for bloody well shot._

_But shot she'd been. _

_Now, standing above her, he studies the wound. It's on her left side, just beneath one of her ribs. Wash would certainly call it just a scratch knowing her, but the truth is that the bullet had taken one hell of a chunk of her meat with it on its way past her. She'd either not noticed (having not even done so much as showered before getting into an air-taxi with Nathaniel – both of them preferring the hot water of an actual shower over the sonic beams of a dry one) or had assumed it to be of little consequence. Either way, she'd been wrong about the severity of it, and in short order, it'd become infected. By the time they'd reached Nathaniel's house, she'd been running a fever well over one hundred._

_Which is why Ayani is now racing around the room, gathering medical supplies, and frantically – and quite angrily – tending to the Corporal._

"_How did you not notice?" she demands of her husband as she kneels at Wash's side, and presses a cold wet cloth against the wound. The corporal – barely conscious or cognizant of her surroundings – moans in pain and tries to flinch away. Ayani gives her a gentle push back towards the bed to hold her down._

"_It's been a long couple of days," Nathaniel admits as he steps closer. "But I should have. This is on me."_

_His soft words, and acceptance of responsibility is enough to calm her anger. At least in regards to him. He knows for certain that there will be hell to pay later for Wash once she's awake and in better health._

_Yeah, he's pretty damn sure that Ayani is going to read Wash the riot act for this one. The well deserved riot act, in his opinion._

_Damned woman._

_So stubborn, so unwilling to ever take care of herself._

_It's madness._

_It's Wash._

_The couple falls silent for the next ten minutes as Ayani cleans the wound, and then covers it. Finally, to her husband she says, "I need a new shirt. Hers is filthy. And covered in blood. I'm assuming not all of it hers."_

"_Probably not even most of it," he says sadly. _

_She turns to face her husband then. "How many?"  
><em>

"_Twelve."_

"_Oh baby."_

_She moves away from Wash, steps into Nathaniel's' arms and pulls him close. He won't cry, that's not his way. But he will let her hold him. He's not too proud for that. Even he knows when he needs human contact, a simple gentle touch._

_He knows when he needs his wife._

_They stay like this for a few minutes before she pushes him back. "Shirt."_

"_Shouldn't we…shouldn't she…"_

"_Shower?" Ayani teases. It amuses her how squeamish her big strong husband can be at times – especially considering the very basic fact that he's likely seen the woman in the bed naked more than a few times. In co-ed warzones like the one Nathaniel and Wash are in, there's rarely much use for modesty between the sexes. Nudity is just a fact of life, and only the most immature of men or woman spare even a thought to it on a cold morning in the middle of the forest._

"_Yes," he replies with a smile. _

"_Yes," she confirms. "That's why I want the clean clothes. Grab a pair of my sweats as well. And then help me get her up and under the water."_

_He gathers the clothes quickly, deposits them on the counter in the bathroom, and then moves to Ayani's side. Slowly, the two of them lift Wash and carry her into the bathroom, and then into the shower. Ayani strips the rest of Wash's mud and blood soaked clothes away, and then holds the half-conscious woman against her as the water sprays down against them._

_In a different world, in a different life, this could be sensual or something oddly erotic even with – or maybe especially because of – her husband standing by to offer a hand as needed. Right now, though, this is all about helping a woman that she has come to love like family._

_Ayani isn't a silly or naïve woman. She's aware that Wash has feelings for her husband that aren't quite platonic. She's also aware that there is a deep morality within Wash that most people could only dream of. The corporal is loyal to a fault, and would never cross any lines or do anything to hurt her or Nathaniel._

_Ever._

_This Ayani knows and believes beyond question._

_It's a strange thing really. Most women wouldn't want someone around who harbored feelings for their husband. Ayani isn't most women, and she doesn't believe that Alicia Washington is one either. Instead of threatened, Ayani finds herself touched by the loyalty the younger woman shows both she and her husband. Many people will say things like "I would die for you" – Ayani has no doubt in her mind that Wash would do exactly that for Nathaniel and everyone in his family. In a heartbeat, without hesitation, Wash would lay her life down._

_It's terrifying to consider, but it oddly makes Ayani feels as loyal to Wash as the corporal feels to her. There's a bond between them, an unspoken understanding._

_A deep friendship and respect._

_Right now, there's also ice cold water._

_And Wash is conscious again. Conscious and sputtering._

"_What the hell?" she gasps. She thrashes an arm out, tries to push the couple away from her, but finds herself far too weak to even be slightly successful at it._

"_You were injured," Ayani says simply. "We cleaned you up."_

"_I…"_

"_Did you know, Lieutenant?" Nathaniel asks. He's backed off, is leaning against the door. When Wash looks to him, he meets her eyes, doesn't let his own travel._

"_Know, Sir?"_

"_That you got shot?"_

_She frowns at that. _

"_I'll take that as a yes. Dammit, Corporal. What the hell were you thinking?"_

"_I was trying to take care of our men, Sir," she shoots back. Her tone is annoyed, but still somehow respectful. It's something only Wash can pull off._

"_And yourself? What if you had just dropped dead? Would that have been a help to our men, Wash?"_

"_I was never that injured," she answers, still defiant. "I looked at it, it seemed like just a small scratch, I poured water over it and moved on."_

"_You poured water over it?" Ayani challenges, disbelief sparking in her beautiful eyes. She's much shorter than Wash, but the corporal has no doubt that the commanders' wife could take her down if she chose to. "You? One of the best medics in this damned military? You did something so unbelievably stupid?"_

"_I…"_

"_I think that's a yes, dear," Nathaniel says with a slight hint of amusement in his deep voice. There's a sparkle to his eyes. He's no longer worried about his young medic. Now, he's just playing with his food._

_Wash grimaces. She hates when these two gang up on her. It's a bit weird this strange relationship she's been brought into. A little awkward and odd. _

_Because Ayani knows._

_She knows, and still wants Wash around._

"_Yes," Wash grits out._

"_Stupid, Corporal," Nathaniel admonishes. "Really dumb. I expect better of you."_

"_Yes, sir." She meets his eyes, refuses to flinch away. It makes the bastard grin._

"_All right, that's enough, you two," Ayani says. "No more power plays. Alicia is getting back into bed."_

"_I don't…"_

_Before Nathaniel can make it an order, his wife does. "I don't think I was asking you, Corporal."_

"_Yes, ma'am."_

"_I like the sound of that." Ayani says. Funny thing is, she normally doesn't. Typically, she can't stand when Wash calls her ma'am. But right now, it it means the corporal gets so much needed rest, she'll accept it. "Now get dressed and into bed. Now."_

_Wash reluctantly nods. She pulls on the offered clothes, and then, stubbornly refusing the hand offered, she makes her way towards the bed._

_And then stops._

"_Guest room is made up?"_

"_It is. And Nathaniel and I will be there."_

"_No."_

"_Yes. Now."_

_Wash can't help but let out a small growl at that. It's the last of her protests, though. She knows when she's beat. She hates to admit it, but as tired and sore as she is, she hasn't the strength to take on both of the Taylors._

_And so, she simply waves the white flag._

_She crawls into the bed, wincing slightly as she does. A moment later, the lights go off and she's alone._

_At least she thinks she is. _

_She doesn't know that both Nathaniel and Ayani take turns checking on her throughout the night._

* * *

><p>He's sitting next to her bed when her dark eyes open. For a moment, she's confused and disorientated – and perhaps even a bit frightened. She sits up in the bed, eyes wide, like she can't figure out where the hell she is.<p>

Or how she got here.

"Wash," she hears. The deep voice, rumbling and calming.

Her heartbeat slows.

She turns and sees the man from the day before – Nathaniel – watching her. His blue eyes are full of concern and somehow she knows that she hates that.

She opens her mouth to speak, but the words still won't come.

She tries again and then shakes her head in frustration.

"Easy, Wash," he says to her. "It's going to take some time."

She snaps her fingers (the unbroken ones) and motions for the plex. He hands it to her and watches as she writes, "Don't humor me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he tells her, his mouth lifting up into what appears to be the beginning of a smile. "But the doc is right, you were hurt. You need to heal."

"What happened to me?" she writes on the plex.

"It's a long story, Wash, and not one for today."

She shakes her head at that.

"Dammit…tell…me."

It takes him a moment to realize that she hadn't written the words, but rather said them allowed. Her voice is throaty and cracked, and her words are more stuttered than said, but they'd come from her mouth just the same.

"Well look at that, turns out all I have to do is piss you off to get you talking again," he chuckles.

By the icy glare she sends his way, it's clear that she's not nearly as amused as he is. Well, too bad, because his amusement is at least somewhat based on the fact that this woman – the one rock left in his left – refuses to go out.

She refuses to die.

Selfishly, desperately, he likes to think that she refuses to leave him.

"Tell me," she says again.

He leans in towards her, "Not yet, Wash. But soon, I promise. You get yourself up and out of that bed, and you come back to me, and I promise you, I will tell you everything you want to know. I promise."

"I….I'm….holding….holding you to that," she finally manages, seeming even more frustrated by how long it takes her to get the words out.

"I damn well expect you to."

And he does. Come hell or high-water, he's going to make this right with her. He's going to start over with her, let her know how much she means to him.

But it all starts with her.

They can't start anew until she remembers where they've been and what they've been through. They can't start over until she forgives him.

**TBC…**


End file.
